Rip And Annie With The Herd

Annie’s colt, Rip, is now five months old. He continues to grow like a weed and eats hay and grain enthusiastically, just like his mom. Soon, it will be time to wean them, but I have not decided exactly how I will pull that off yet. Weaning is more about Annie and allowing her milk to dry up. After that, she is not likely to let him nurse anymore. An emotional weaning is going to be much harder to achieve unless I take Annie away for a month or two.

I let Rip run free and wild with the herd, so he can learn to negotiate the adult horses, explore the corners of his world, play hard, and nap in the sun. I get Annie and Rip out, a few times a week, tie up Annie in a familiar spot, while I “work” lightly with Rip. I take great care to keep sessions very short and always leave him wanting more (more attention, more scratching, more interaction).

From the moment Rip first stood, I set a precedent that you should stand still when I am at your shoulder, with my hands on your withers. Of course, when he was first born, it was easy to hold him in place with my arm around his chest and the other around his rump. I would just hold him momentarily, and then release him when he was still by stepping away from him.

Another precedent we set was to halter him and “lead” him (alongside the mare) to his daily turnout every day for the first two months of his life. As a result of setting these simple precedents, Rip loves to see people approaching (he’s looking forward to the interaction), he’s easy to catch and pokes his nose right in the open halter, and he stands still when I put my hand on his withers, and he’s learned to follow along with me when I lead him.

He has already learned a lot without any real “training” just from handling him consistently and focusing on the end game. In other words, we pay attention to the things we DON’T want him to learn, like pushing, leaning, putting his mouth on you, pulling away from you. It is gratifying to have such a pure, clean slate to shape into a friendly, compliant, safe, and engaged horse. Am I glad I bred my mare? Why yes, I am!

Meanwhile, I enjoy riding Tomcat, our next youngest horse. He’s a five-year-old with mad skills in the cutting pen but still relatively green in terms of all-around riding. A few weeks ago, Rich and I took both geldings, Casper and Tom, up to the C Lazy U Ranch for the four-day Ranch Riding Adventure. This clinic is the most active riding clinic I offer at C Lazy U, and I am teaching in the arena all day long.

I am often mounted when I teach, whether I am giving a demo at a horse expo or teaching at a clinic. Sometimes, I ride a horse I have never been on before and I always get a kick out of how the horse processes this unusual situation. Some horses figure out the rhythm of teaching right away and seem to relish the thought of being the instructor’s horse. It comes with a certain amount of gravitas.

Teaching from a horse is drastically different from riding or training a horse. We spend a lot of time standing still, frequently dismounting to help someone, then remounting and doing a quick demo, and then riding in the opposite direction of everyone else so I can watch and coach the riders. There’s little time to focus on the horse I am riding, and horses appreciate that most of the time. 

Tomcat made me proud on his first time as the instructor’s horse! He was brave and confident around the other horses. I noticed that the confident air about him caused the ranch horses to treat him with some deference. He immediately settled into the role of the instructor’s horse and picked up the rhythm of each lesson, whether I was explaining, coaching, or demonstrating.

He would stand ground-tied when I hopped off to help someone and wait patiently for me to come back to him. He performed so admirably that it felt like I’d been teaching with him for years. He is a great horse with a brave and willing attitude, and we could not be happier with him!

Tomcat will keep me busy enough until little Rip is ready to start his riding career, a couple of years from now. We are so fortunate to have a barn full of great horses, but I do not take them for granted, nor think of it as a lucky accident. It takes a lot of work, dedication, and intention on our part, but the payback makes it all worthwhile.