Saddle Talk with Sandy and Cara
'Saddle Talk with Sandy and Cara' is hosted by two saddle sisters, keeping you company one ride at a time. We discuss life, love, horses of course, and all the unexpected turns along the trail.
Saddle Talk with Sandy and Cara
Ponying Part 1: Motivating the Rider
In this episode Sandy and Cara talk about their own fears surrounding ponying horses and describe a recent adventure ponying Armani the rescued Andalusian. They describe their favorite gear for ponying and motivate fellow equestrians to take the whole equid family out for a stroll. Ponying Part 2, will discuss groundwork strategies for getting your horse ready for the trail.
Clip clop goes, the trail sun is rising. Hi. Two gals in the saddle neath the big Nevada sky. Laughing and chatting as the desert rolls on by. It's Saddle Talk. Come along for the ride.
Speaker 2:Welcome, listeners, to Saddle Talk with Sandy and Cara. Whether you're here to laugh with us, learn, or just ride along, you're in for a really good time. So go grab your helmet or your pooper scooper and settle in with us as we discuss life, horses, of course, and all the unexpected turns along the trail. And hey, whether you're a seasoned cowgirl or you're still learning, remember we're sharing our own stories and opinions based on decades of personal experience. Always ride safe and check with a professional before trying anything new. Now let's go ride.
Speaker 3:Well, hello, listeners. Hello, Miss Cara.
Speaker 2:Hello.
Speaker 3:Hello. So today's topic, we are going to talk about ponying horses. Ponying new horses, baby horses, everything to do to get your horse ready for the trail. And making them a partner, making them confident on the trail, giving them that ability to be brave. How would you like to start? Do you want to start with your new baby?
Speaker 2:Sure. Before we jump in, I want to say two things.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:I think that you're a badass. I think that you have your cowgirl wings. Thank you. It's official. Thank you. And the second thing is, is I am a little tired today. I'm a little sleepy. So I'm just putting that out there for our listeners that if I sound sleepy, I am. Long weekend, but a good weekend.
Speaker 3:Good weekend. Great weekend. And leads right into what we're talking about because you have a new six-year-old baby that is just the most beautiful horse in the world. His name is Armani. Of course it is. He is a gray Andalusian, and he is just amazing, but he's a baby, and he's kind of had to start from ground zero.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And when you say that he's beautiful, it's so funny because when I look at him, all I see is a punk. He reminds me of, I want to say like a middle schooler or like a sixth grader who's trying to wear really fancy clothes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But you know, they really they really miss the mark. He's like one of those little boys that puts on way too much axe. You know? They spray all that axe and then they walk around like they are the idiots.
Speaker 3:Because the bottle says if you spray this on, the girls will come. So I'm telling you what, though, we have mares that the minute you put them around him, they go up and they start winking. And yeah, so you know, when I moved up here, when you when you have your horses on your property, you're left to your own defenses. And one of the things that I did was I came up with one horse, and then I had a dear friend of mine find me the most awesome horse. And I had Are you talking about Max? I'm talking about Max, yeah.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I'm talking about, he didn't start out awesome, he was on the Sandy program.
unknown:Right.
Speaker 2:And the Sandy program just I feel like it's your consistency.
Speaker 3:I'm yeah, I'm trying to.
Speaker 2:You are very consistent when it comes to just going out and doing it. And even if it's a small thing, I think that that's honestly like your magic sauce. And when you hear professionals who are at the Olympic level or even like below, just successful riders, they talk about how it just takes consistency. Like that is the number one thing that horses need, and I think that you have that.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you.
Speaker 2:You're welcome.
Speaker 3:and ponying is not a big deal, it really isn't. I think the hardest part about it is just knowing what to do with the extra rope, knowing to do with your what to do with your hands. I follow Mustang Matt on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/mustang.matt.75929). He's an amazing Mustang trainer, and he lives in Montana, and he's on Facebook. That's the reason why I'm like getting his location. Yeah. Because it's not a secret. Right, it's public knowledge. And I've watched him, and he goes out with these horses, and he I think he just has them tied to his the back of his saddle, or he's holding them. I don't know. Okay, but the horses just follow. So I try to tell myself in my brain when I go out what makes it easier, harder. I'm hesitating, I don't really know how to say this. It's like I can't focus on one horse at one time. I have to focus on both of them. So each horse gets half my attention. So I'm not nitpicking the one I'm riding, right? And I'm and I'm not nitpicking the one that I'm you know ponying, and you just you just have to do it. Right. And so if there's a listener out there who maybe has a second horse or is getting a horse, and they're like, How do I do this by myself? Because you don't always get a trainer. You you can't always just send your horse off for training, and even if you do, you have to still do your own thing, and when you get home, so just do it.
Speaker 2:Just do it, and just do it. No, that's really the magic when it comes to ponying.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I had a friend, a friend in SoCal who used to pony Bob for me when it was really, really wet out. And I think I just couldn't ride him in those arenas because they were huge puddles that lasted weeks. But she would do the long trotting on the river trail.
Speaker 3:So she took him and she would take him out on the river trail and pony him.
Speaker 2:She would take him out on the river trail and go up and down, and it was like a godsend because I couldn't exercise him and he needed it. He was always just a little chunky monkey. Right. And so when you had those wet winters, which actually did happen in SoCal, it does rain in Southern California.
Speaker 3:It does.
Speaker 2:It really does. And man, sometimes it pours. And sometimes it pours. So I would watch her and I would just be so thankful for what she was doing. And Bob didn't know what he was doing, and she would just go. And then I think I probably ponied, I want to say I ponied a few times down in SoCal just because I was very comfortable with her horse. So when we moved up here, it was actually with you that I got into ponying regularly. And I always knew it was the right thing to do. If you have a horse, just and you have an extra horse, just pony the thing.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I was real, I was really worried. You know my biggest fear was I was gonna drop the horse. Drop drop the rope? I was gonna drop the rope and the horse is gonna run away.
Speaker 3:I know, and how many times have we dropped the rope and they just stand there and look at us like oh they're like uh what are you gonna do now?
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna leave my friend.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So if that's your fear, y'all, just yeah, do it because when you drop the rope, they literally stand there and they're like, okay.
Speaker 3:And one thing though, you know, you can practice in the arena. Yes, and that's great. I mean, absolutely, but there's gonna be a difference when you actually leave your house. Yes, it's gonna be all these distractions, all these outside, you know, pressures, exactly.
Speaker 2:Because when you're in the arena, I think there's like this a feeling of coziness and comfortableness, comfortability that the horses have with each other. So if you're finding that they're sort of like nitpicking on each other, that's not necessarily gonna happen on the trail.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Right, they're just gonna be okay with what's going on because they have other things like you know, lions and dogs and humans and the terrible people, the people that wear white shirts, and the plastic bags. Yeah, my horses have always hated and Armani hates white shirts.
Speaker 3:I don't know why.
Speaker 2:I don't Bob hated anyone. Do you we would be with Bob and we would be on the trail and you would see someone with a white shirt and he could not deal. And even when we were in Cerritos and I would be in the arena doing dressage, if there was a walker on the bike path in a white shirt, he would stop and just stare and be freaked out until the person walked by. And then we were ponying Armani, was it like yesterday or this weekend?
Speaker 3:On our way home, uh-huh, that person was walking down the trail with a white shirt on and he stopped and he looked.
Speaker 2:And I'm like, oh my gosh, not again, not a horse that hates white shirts.
Speaker 3:So Max has now become my pony horse. Yeah. So he has really turned into a really great beginner horse for beginner people.
Speaker 2:Literally anyone can ride that.
Speaker 3:And I pony off of him, and he lets me know when he's had enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So he's been and he did reach his mental limit this weekend. He did, he did.
Speaker 3:So we for the first time on Friday morning, we took your baby Armani out. And I think we were a little ballsy in what we did.
Speaker 2:We were totally ballsy.
Speaker 3:I know, I know, but but it was fine. It was fine. We were safe. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I think we both agree that if we're gonna get into a a spot that feels dangerous, so when you start emotionally sort of creeping towards danger, you can always just get off. Yeah, that's I think something that culturally in the horse world is a big fat no that really annoys me. Like you have to get back on the horse. Bitches, you don't have to get back on the horse. No. No, and no, but I have a story that you I don't know if I've told you this. Go ahead. I was showing at regionals, and I was going over some pretty big jumps that day, and they were all like three foot. This is before they did like the the meter 20, meter 30, meter 40. So we're going over these auxers, and I think the highest was 3'5, and that was at the end of the course, and I think I'd been in that arena four different times, basically jumping the same jumps.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So we get to this big auxer, and at the time I was riding this amazing, and he'd been a national champion, he was beautiful. He was an Arabian. I was trying to think. His name was Gay Rain Royale, so he was a gay pirata grandson. So anyone who's into Arabs and and you know the gainey bred animals, they are just fantastic personalities. He would stick out his tongue and just eat snacks. He got really mad one time when I gave him chicken. Ooh, yeah. I was a teenager, like I I mean, I was probably young 20s. And I think about it, like reflecting. I think I was 21. 21 is when I have my big accident. So we were in that arena and we came up to this jump, and he'd already jumped it three times that day, and he refused, and I just went flying into the jump. So I got launched and I landed on the second pole of the auxer, and my hips landed square on it, and it was the weirdest thing because the pole didn't move. It was like the jump stayed still, and my body got squished. I know it was terrible. I went down and I was kind of in shock, and my trainer was like, Get back on, get back on, right? Because she's screaming from the stands. She's like, Get back on that horse, get back on that horse. Because you're supposed to take one more jump, supposedly to give you confidence and the horse confidence. I got back on. I went over this little jump that was one of the first jumps in the course. On my landing, I it was the grossest sensation I've ever had as a human. On the landing on the offside of the jump, I literally felt my pelvis spread. And it wasn't pain. That's the weirdest thing to me, is that I didn't feel pain, I just felt the bones literally spread apart. And I just I just got so hot. My whole body just I had this like visceral reaction. I slumped off the horse, I started stripping my clothing off in front of a crowd because I wasn't all there, and so ever since that accident, I've just been a proponent of no, no, you don't have to get back on that horse. You can stay off. And so for me, that was like a pivotal point in my riding career because upon reflection, I shouldn't have been riding that horse in that bit on that day with those big of uh jumps in front of me. I wasn't really ready for what I was doing, not really, and so your trainer should have known too. I know, but she was kind of disconnected from reality. Okay, yeah, that could be another podcast. She really was disconnected. That actually it changed my life also because I couldn't have kids after that. Wow, I had a fully crushed pelvis, and so the doctor said I could get pregnant, but I would never be able to bear children, that I wouldn't be able to take them to terms. Yeah. Well, I wouldn't be able to carry them to term, that they would get too big and then I would miscarry. And and and I think as I got older, I was like, Oh, yeah, I don't want to play that game. No, like I don't want to have to be on so sorry. Oh, that's okay. It it I never really wanted kids the same way that other women did. Yeah, but I think I've always been just really into safety. That accident, I'd always been into safety, but that accident really made me aware of I am fallible, I'm a fallible human. I was in my early 20s and it was a life-changing event.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I had a huge concussion after that. Yeah, I was basically non-functioning for about six months, even though I was pre-vet in school. It was a really, really tough accident for me. And so I'm all about the safety. I mean, like you know me, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so to bring that back to the topic, we were out this weekend and we got Armani to my house from your house. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We got You have to cross a decently busy road.
Speaker 3:It is a busy road, yeah. So we I rode Max over here, and then we ponied him back to my house, and then you got Aspen ready, and then we took him out. He was kind of being a bit of an ass to Max. Yes. And like, just like a little sibling that is screwing with their brother or sister, you know, he kept kind of like going to his butt, then going under his belly, and it's like, you know, and I was doing what I had to with the rope, and you were trying to touch his flame and you were behind me so you could see things that I couldn't see. We got about halfway down the trail, and Max was done. Just done. He was so done. Oh my god, he was doing this, he doesn't buck, but he was doing those little I call them like crow hops, you know?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You got off Aspen, I ponied Aspen, who is used to being ponied because of you, and you walked Armani home.
Speaker 2:Which was an adventure in itself.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No, it's true.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I mean, even and then to touch on Aspen a little bit, you were given Aspen as a free horse. She came to you a little over chunky monkey.
Speaker 2:Uh yeah, she was she was super chunk. Yeah. Um, I think she wasn't doing much for a while. My vet actually gave her to me and said, here, because I had a I had a horse that passed, and I reached out to my vet who I love, and I was like, hey, do you know anyone, you know, giving away horses? Because you know, you can always ask your vet. If you have a close relationship, yeah, they're gonna know someone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right?
Speaker 2:They're gonna know someone that has a quote unquote free horse.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so it's kind of the same situation where we were just kind of reprogramming aspen.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Reprogramming aspen and reprogramming Armani, and so we decided to start with Aspen. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So Aspen came to live at my house. I have more separation in my setup. Yeah. Yours is more communal.
Speaker 2:Yes. Right. Yeah, I've got more of it has like a I call it a man shed.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it it's like a 36 by 12 and like this big cave, plus I've got an emergency stall.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But it is really herd living.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And whereas you have more of separated stalls.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And she needed to be separated. She did. Yeah. She was overeating.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she was eating everybody else's good food. Right.
Speaker 2:I can't blame her.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So we put her on a diet, and I just started ponying her with Max. And there were times when I was out there by myself, and Max would have enough. I mean, I think one time I got off and just walked both of them home.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. Because I was like, Good for you. Good for you. Max doesn't like when a horse is right on his butt when he's going down a hill. Max is a draft draft quarter pony. Draft quarter pony.
Speaker 3:And he's got the shortest little legs. And so he He reminds me of like a Dachshund. He does. Or a Corgi. And and he takes little tiny steps when he's going down a hill, if there's another horse that's anxious or or nervous behind him, he'll start, he'll start hopping. And I think I got down to the the bottom of that one section.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I was like, that's it. We're just we're just gonna walk home.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:So that's what we did. And that I just feel like you say, you know, I just want to be safe.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:And so you know, if our listeners are getting anything from this, it's just always safety first.
Speaker 2:Safety first, get off the horse.
Speaker 3:And if you have a horse, if you have more than one horse and you hate leaving the one alone, you could get a third horse, you know, to keep that second horse company when you take the first horse out. But then if the first horse needs company, you could pony that second horse. Right. And but now if you do have three horses and you do pony another horse, you might need to get a fourth horse to keep that third horse company while you go. No girl, I don't know. And pony the second horse. Right. So you guys leave it up to yourself. You make your decision. I have four horses. So Armani did pretty good. Uh yesterday we ponied him in the morning.
Speaker 2:We did.
Speaker 3:And it was maybe 20 minutes.
Speaker 2:Um we stayed local to my backyard. Backyard, yeah. So I have an arena in my backyard, and we stayed local to that spot. And I have Autumn in my backyard, which is Sandy's horse, but it's more of she's my girl too. I love her so much. So we actually just went back and forth on this little footpath that's behind my house.
Speaker 3:Yes, and he would not walk over the ditch. Yes, he would not walk in through the ditch. I thought he was gonna jump it, and I dropped the rope.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he wasn't rearing, but he just stopped and he would not go. Yes. And you couldn't get him to go.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:And then poor Max is like Max is like, bro, I'm going. And then you had to let go, and he literally just stood there. Yeah. Yeah. I think you actually dropped it on two different occasions.
Speaker 3:I did, did.
Speaker 2:Which is healthy. In reality, do the safe thing, right? Where's he gonna go? What's he gonna do?
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Because we already had two horses, so we could always just run up on him and grab, which he's he's never gonna run away. That's his backyard.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I think that's another thing that people need to to realize too.
Speaker 2:And just like relax on just kind of be calm. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, your your horse loves you, your horse knows who feeds it. Yeah, it's not gonna leave you.
Speaker 2:Right, they're like whales, they travel in pods, right? They just want to hang out together.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so is there anything else you want to mention about ponying or you know?
Speaker 2:I think I wasn't afraid of ponying ever after having ponied in SoCal, but I think my first experience ponying here was actually with Jewel the Mustang.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And I ponied her and I was like, all right, let's go do this. And she was such a good girl. And you know who ponies a lot is polo players.
Speaker 3:Really?
Speaker 2:They'll they'll pony seven horses at one time.
Speaker 3:I think that's so cool.
Speaker 2:It's so cool. Like, hey family, let's go out.
Speaker 3:So I don't even know how you would do that. Like, how would I pony horses on like a horse on each side of me?
Speaker 2:I guess they would have to figure it out and they have to get along.
Speaker 3:And then how do you like when I've I mentioned Mustang Matt before, I've seen him have more than one horse.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And they all stay behind each other. Because Armani wasn't doing that. Armani wanted to come up to the front.
Speaker 2:Butt nugget.
Speaker 3:He was, and he wanted to come up front. And I mean, how do you get that horse to get to the back?
Speaker 2:Right. Well, I was working with him today because I'm trying to get him to just be more polite. Because what he was doing to Max, he was he actually does on the ground with me, which is why I'm such a big proponent of groundwork. And I kind of always have been. But I am sort of leaping into the Parelli world, which is is is I understand it, and I understand Clinton Anderson and that whole movement, like Chris Cox, all those people who I want to say in the early 2000s, maybe it kind of took off, like late 90s, where you had natural horsemanship just sort of as a wave go through America.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And at that point, I'd already been riding for a while, and so I absolutely bought into some of the ideals of natural horsemanship, but I've always been able to train my horses without the use of true a hundred percent ideals of one certain trainer. I've always mishmashed what I knew.
Speaker 3:It's like having children, it's like having kids. When you have children, you take advice from a million different people and then you tailor it and make it your own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's two brands of groundwork because I feel like the word groundwork is kind of a misnomer now. Groundwork today, I think, means natural horsemanship. But when I was growing up, groundwork to me meant training a horse to be ridden, and you would do every single thing you could on the ground that you would do on its back. So I love long lining.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you're still doing everything that you're gonna do in the saddle on the ground first.
Speaker 2:It's totally different. Okay, I promise. You'll you'll you'll see me with Armani. And I have to say that I like calling him Smarmani because it's a combination of shhmegma and armani. He has the most disgusting penis. Like it is gonna go so awful. It is so like I thought Bob was bad. This guy, like when I go to clean his penis, it's like gooey, poor guy. That's actually how he started liking me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because he was kind of an aggro. Yeah, I was cleaning him. He's like, oh, okay, you can get in there. Sweet. Yeah, so schmar, I call him Schmar, Schmor Mani. But he he did a lot better yesterday, but I feel like when I start groundworking him from a rider perspective, you know, I'll show you kind of what all that all entails. Okay. And I think I think nowadays when someone say says groundwork, they're thinking of the Parelli thing in it.
Speaker 3:Of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is working. And I tried that today, and he did a lot better today than he did, you know, the day before and the day before that. So I'm trying to be consistent with just going outside and even if it's only 15, 20 minutes, going out there and just making sure that I have some type of groundwork, the sort of Parelli style where I'm trying to teach him that I'm the leader.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And you will not encroach upon my space. And you know, trying to nip me all the time is not okay because he's sick. They say he was gelded late, so he must have been gelded at the end of his third year, but to me that doesn't seem late.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:I thought they gelded him at five, but I guess it was three. I talked to the lady, the lady that owned him, and uh we had to talk because he was mating with one of the horses I had boarded here.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I only had one boarder, they were together, and they definitely started mating, and I just could not let that happen.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Obvious for obvious reasons, right? Your horses are gonna get hurt.
Speaker 3:She lives at my house.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad you took her. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:So glad you are.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Just do, I think we should just say, just do it.
Speaker 3:You know, our topics aren't gonna be these long, in-depth, I don't know, mind-blowing. I mean, it might be mind-blowing if you're like, I never thought I could do it by myself, and here's two people that just did it. That's what I'm hoping that people get out of this. Right, you know what I'm thinking though, too, is if you do have a partner, let's say you really are afraid to do it, but maybe there's someone at your barn that you feel comfortable working with. You could do what we did, remember? You held one lead rope, I held we put two lead ropes on Armani, I held the other lead rope, so it's more like he was in a cross stall, cross tie as we walk down the street. Maybe we do that the next time when we ride. Yeah. You ride Aspen, I ride Max, and we'll both have a rope. That way he can't go to one or the other to bite.
Speaker 2:We could try. I think Aspen might get a little saucy, but we could try it. I'm down to try it, because you know what? I'll just drop the rope.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just for a minute.
Speaker 3:Just you know, like just see.
Speaker 2:Just see if it works out.
Speaker 3:If I don't know, yeah. It might be a shit show.
Speaker 2:I do recommend wearing a helmet. And I do recommend wearing a vest. Yes, yes. I always wear a vest. I've seen enough accidents, so that's something that I am adamant about. The vest, the helmet, and Sandy forgot her helmet.
Speaker 3:And you did not see it.
Speaker 2:I did not see it. We were so excited. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And you looked at me, you everything, and it wasn't until I cleaned it out, you did not even comment to me that I was not wearing my helmet.
Speaker 2:Honestly, that's kind of why I wanted to end early. Really? Yes, yes. Okay. And he he was doing good. He was doing good enough.
Speaker 3:We ended early, if you think about it, we were at least for 20 minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it was like the last seven minutes. I was like, mm-hmm, I need to I wanna hurry. I wanna hurry with this. She doesn't have a helmet.
Speaker 3:I know.
Speaker 2:So then I gave her mine. She used it all the way home. Yeah. As she crossed that road.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That was just weird. I don't even know how it happened. It just doesn't.
Speaker 2:You know what? One more thing, we used a rope halter. And I've been using the Parelli halter, but for the actual ponying, we used the Clinton Anderson halter.
Speaker 3:I really prefer the Clinton Anderson. It's a little more rigid, has a few more knots on the nose, and I just feel like it has a better control.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I I mean you can get a lead rope anywhere. You can get a rope halter anywhere. It doesn't have to be Clinton Anderson.
Speaker 2:It just was like the four knots versus the two.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right?
Speaker 3:And I just, you know, I got sucked up into the wave like everybody else. Of course. And I was introduced to Clinton Anderson prior to Parelli. I kind of felt like the name of all the games just seems kind of silly for me. Yeah. And Clinton Anderson is just like, do this, this, this, and this. And it was these. It's almost like the steps are kind of the same. And even the games, Parelli has names. He just says, do this. Right. It's just a different packaging. Same action, different packaging.
Speaker 2:And I think that's kind of what turned me off between the two of not actually jumping into that world. And I felt like it was all the same. It was like good practice, good, great practices that these trainers are using with this different packaging, and you're just making a book. And I'd seen it kind of grow. I saw it start. My trainer in Norco used to host natural horsemanship clinics at her place, and I would watch Chris Cox, and I thought he was amazing. So I kind of have working knowledge of it, and I just never needed it. And then with Armani, he is just a different deal. He's a hot mess. He's a hot mess. He's a hot mess of a horse. So I feel like that's one of my favorite things about horses is that they're gonna make you go where you didn't know you could or would or should. Right. And because I'm so in tune with that one particular animal, I'm just gonna do what that one particular animal needs. And this horse needs something that I don't know.
Speaker 3:The direction.
Speaker 2:The direction, right? So we're getting help from a Parelli trainer. She's a licensed parelli trainer in town, and she's coming, she's trying to come every other weekend, and she gives me homework. And she did not give us the ponying homework, but I just know how well ponying works.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I just think that we need to get him out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just do it.
Speaker 3:Just yeah, go. I mean, even if you have him amazing out here, the minute you take him on the outside of his secure environment, he's gonna be a different horse.
Speaker 2:Yep. So I feel like we call it the show, right? Like the moment you open the gate and we we leave our properties, it's almost like going to the show. Yeah, we're just going on the trail, but in in a lot of ways, it's that same emotional pressure for the horse.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:New environments, new threats. Yes, and so trail riding, I think, in general, kind of gets like this this bad rap. It's like all these old ladies that are just what do they call them in England? I think it's called happy hackers. Oh we're happy hackers.
Speaker 1:Oh, we're happy hackers, right?
Speaker 2:And we don't, it's like we don't have the same prestige, but in reality, I think that we're doing something that is completely mentally healthy for the animals, yeah, and sort of underrated. And if you have access to trails in any way, you will be amazed and surprised at how happy your horses are if you can just hack out once a month, twice a month. That animal that you are boarding at a barn is just gonna love what you do on the trail, and it creates a different connection. Yeah, it really does. Like I noticed it right away with Bob. Yeah, like he's like, Oh, I love you, but then he's like, Oh, I really love you. Yeah, because you go to a new location, you become the safe person, and you're together and you're with your little herd because hopefully you go with at least one more horse and one more person.
Speaker 3:And you know they bond the minute they're in the trailer together, so you know, when you get done, yeah, you've got that to deal with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Autumn taught Bob how to trailer and how to trail ride. Yeah, and he was okay at trailering, but as soon as we started trailering with you, he became a pro at it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because he was like, Oh, my girlfriend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:It was.
Speaker 2:It was, it was great. Yeah. So, riders, just do it.
Speaker 3:Just go pony your horse. Like Nike. Yeah. Alrighty.
Speaker 2:Well, we hope you have a great time, whatever your horse endeavors include, and we urge you to be safe.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Wear those helmets, wear those vests. I have not tried the air vest, so I use the other one. I'm not gonna do the air vest yet. So be careful of the air vests, because I'm one of those people that would hop off the saddle and it would inflate, and then my horse would get scared. Wear a helmet, wear a vest.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you for listening. And we really hope that you get something out of it, or we at least pass the time while you're cleaning up your arenas. So take care, everybody. Tootles.
Speaker 2:Hey friends, that's the end of today's ride. We hope you enjoyed listening. Don't forget to follow Saddle Talk with Sandy and Cara wherever you get your podcasts. Please leave us a review, share us with a friend, and saddle up with us next time as we ride through more stories, questions, and our wild tangents. Till then, friends, keep your boots dusty and your hard hats on. We hope to see you out on the trail.
Speaker:Sandy and Cara stir ups swinging free, talking about life and love and mystery. From coyotes to coffee, they'll cover it all with the sagebrush blowing and the wild birds call. So cinch up your boots, we're hitting the track. Saddle talks on, and we're not looking back.