Background~ You may remember I just moved here from California and Thump came with the house. I rode him Oct 2005 and he took off with me down the middle of a road and I ended up having to bail off at a full gallop. Sent him to a trainer (who we later bought Lady and Allie from) before I got here, and he originally said, no go, this horse will hurt you. Then said, OK, but stay at a walk and use tie-down and he will do well.
Well, I rode Lady, daughter's prego, fat & lazy horse with awesome, laidback personality last week to get her some exercise. First I've ridden anyone but Thump except when I got on Lady when she first got here. Thump followed us at the pasture fence line then entire time and was not happy. I was bored to tears on Lady. This was last Saturday. Sunday I rode Thump and it suddenly dawned on me that not only am I not afraid to ride him, I enjoy riding him, I love riding him (mind you this is all at a walk). Also, all the work we have been doing on control has paid off. (OK, before all you show people go, "but that's what you are supposed to do!" remember, this is basically a 15 year old, no one has ever paid any attention to or cared a hoot about horse that has spent at least the last 10 years getting his own way). We have a line of trees that we spend time weaving every time we ride. We can do this with just leg pressure now....not every time we ride and not even twice in a row sometimes, but we can do it. I LOVE this horse. And, he had no interest in going back to the barn...either he's no longer barn sour, or was still mad I rode Lady the day before because we'd get to end of path where you either went straight to front of house or turned to barn and I'd drop reigns to see what he'd do and he'd go straight...if I'd pull him towards barn, he'd pull me straight. I made him walk back to barn just because he didn't want to, then turned him back to the path.
OK, now for the bad part...D (former owner's horse) is the alpha male here and Thump is #2. D is the only one that Thump backs down to. If I come out to the barn or the pasture, Thump now chases everyone else away from me, except D. If any of the other horses come over to see me, he will completely chase them away then come right back over to me, almost like they are competing for my attention. Do horses even think this way? It started the day I rode Lady. After I let Lady back out into the pasture that day, Thump let out this shrill sound and charged over chasing everyone away, then galloped right back to me to the point I thought I was gonna be dead and trampled by him, skidded to a stop in front of me and just stood there as if to say, look at me. He chases them out of the barn or away from me in the pasture. When I feed everyone, I just have to get whoever gets into the barn first into their stall right away before he gets in, or if he's first in, no problem, get him in his stall and all is well. What do I do about this? I don't want him hurting one of the girls. Tonight Allie was so intent that she wanted in her stall, which I was near, and Thump was so intent that she was not getting near me that I almost got caught in the cross fire of bucking horses before I could get Allie in her stall and Thump into his.
Kristen
