Sure its Little, but....

Ponies…

I think Ponies are the most misunderstood equine on the planet… LOL I have only worked with them for about a total of 8 hours now, but that is my general impression!

First, they are small.. so people figure, great for kids. Second they look like big dogs, so if it looks like a dog it must be a dog, right?
Third kids are punks, and ponys are punks… so .. figure what will happen.

How may adults do you know, that have had this story..

“Do you ride anymore?”
“Oh no, I had a bad experience on a PONY once..”
“really?”
“Yeah” mutter shuffle, burp.
“What happened?”
“Oh I was at my grandmothers/fathers/Dad/Uncles/Aunts/Whatever place and they put me on a pony, someone slapped it on its rump and the next thing I know I was in the hospital/blackberry bush, knock out by a tree branch, it danced on my head.. “

Ok… Pony.. I get it..

Lastly, since ponies are smaller then horses ( or Phooka) it is easier to shove a bit in its mouth, man handle it a bit to put a saddle on it, and pull it from its feet. They can get feisty, but usually they just stop thinking and force you to force it…

Hmmm.. Not where I am coming from.

So yesterday Julie says, ok lets grab you a pony.. Now Julie has a A LOT Of ponies

You can see her place at http://www.whisperponies.com/index.html

So my first lesson with her, she showed me how to hook up the cart to a dead broke pony and drive around.. OK that’s cool, but you know I like to get a handle on the horse.. So I say, next time, since you have so many, lets get one out and start working with it so I can learn what you need to do in order to get a pony ready for the cart.

Enter Holly. Holly is a 7-8 year old, used to be broodmare ( lost a foal) and now has sat around for awhile. Holly leads great, but softness is not there, feel is not there, respect… she is a pony come on!

So first we start to lead her down to the big bard to get her tacked up and I think, well she just came out of the box, let me mess with her a bit in the arena…Ok, well that revealed some sticky spots and the fact that she does not respond well to the pressure off the lead rope.

So I then take her down to the barn put her in the cross ties and get the surgingel ( whatever!) and go to put it on her. Well she grabs her ass a little at the noise of it…

Hmm..

“Julie” … now remember this is only my second time meeting her and going up to her place…

“Yeah?”

“Do you mind if I take this gear and go up to the arena and mess around with her a bit?”

She looks at me quizzically… like am I loon, and then says “ok”

So I take the little bridle ( too cute) and the little surcingle and ( spell check has no idea what I am trying to say!), and go up to the arena.. I grab my flag and my rope ( yes tools of the trade my friends) and figure I will start at step 1, and work my way through..

POOR PONY!!!!!

Gah she was sweating, licking her lips, just sure that it was hell on earth… Yet as I explained to Julie, if you have a little kid, going to bridle her, or ride her, you want the basics in there, just like she was a big horse. She should take the bit and lower her head ( just like she was a big horse ), she should respond to pressure, she should be able to do a 1 rein stop. She should not be grabbing her ass..

I worked with her for about 2 hours, then since this is Aptos it got cold… Basically, the nut is this.. With ponies, not so much with horses, you can MAKE them do things. I could have SHOVED the bit into the ponies mouth, I could have spun her OFF her feet, I could have physically FORCED her to do what I wanted. No problem..

But kiddies, that’s not the goal. I want the horse thinking, I want it licking and chewing.. I want it to see me, to feel of me, in order for it to move.. I want to do less,

I want people scratching their heads wondering how I got the horse to do that, because I didn’t move a muscle…

The horse knew though… 

Ponies are no different in that regard, no different in how they learn, but often I think people abuse that softness… since they look like a dog, right?

HiHo!
LZO!