Never give a 3 year old time off...

... and expect him to pay attention afterwards.

So Nine had a good four or five days off from training, where I would just work with his front feet a bit at feed time. I had my daughter with me so I couldn't devote much time to his hind feet, which remain untouched. I have a goat who is getting ready to have her kids any minute now, and my other horse, Hammar, has come up lame. I think it's just a pulled muscle, but he has still been receiving much more of my time lately. Which, of course, leaves less and less for Nine. Then, naturally, the internet at the house shut down temporarily, so i haven't been able to blog much.

Tuesday was spent trying to tire Nine out a bit. After an hour and half of letting him run around the round pen, I gave up on saddling for the day, and thought that Wednesday he would be worn out enough to stand for the saddle. Well, he stood alright, until I reached under him to grab the cinch. Then he spooked. So I took some steps backward and sacked Nine out with a rope around his girth area. Once he was okay with that, I pretended to reach for a cinch without the saddle being on him. Once he was okay with that, I tried again with the saddle. I think what he is spooking from is the sudden contact of the cinch with his side, on the opposite side that I am standing on. So I would like to get some help from my fiance, so that he can hold the cinch up against Nine's off side while I reach for it from the near side. Then, hopefully, he will be alright. Unfortunately, Wednesday and today, Thursday, have brought thunderstorms in the early afternoon, so out sessions have been cut short anyways.

Today I gave up on the saddle because I have no one here to help me and I am not making any progress on my own. So I put the halter on Nine and lead him out to the great unknown of the ten acres we live on. Previously Nine has pulled away from me and run back to steal food from the other pen that gets thrown over the fence, but today I had the pinch halter on Nine and he consented to follow me. We walked over to the graves of my first horse and my dad's old horse, and Nine seemed to appreciate me talking, so I walked him around some tires, explaining all the way about how they used to hold up a make-shift jump, but as Nine broke several poles from his pen, I had to sacrifice my jump to keep nine safe. Then we walked over to my other jumps, all of which are of course knocked down from neglect. One was half up on one side, though, so I had Nine step over that, then over a "jump" comprised of an old barrel cut in half lengthwise and laid on the ground. Nine didn't appreciate having to stretch his stride to get over it, but he did what I asked. We made a detour to the garden, which had been catching Nine's eye the whole time, and I picked a leafy branch for him.

Then we got back to the round pen, and I tried to work with his hind feet a bit, but wimped out when he stamped the ground at my touch. It seems that motherhood has taken the fearless cowgirl out of me! I will try again when Mr. Christina is around, so I know I will at least have someone to carry me out of the pen if I get kicked. Until then, I will hide out in the house listening to the thunder rolling over the cinder hills.