In 6 months some would say we really haven't accomplished much (especially when you compare him to Marvel). I'll tell you one thing though, Cash is a whole different horse from the spooky pony he was 6 months ago. There were some moments when I didn't even think we would make it as far as we have today. I'm so excited to see how far he can go and continue to document our journey to see how far we've come. For now, I've gone into detail below on some of our major milestones.
Trust was really hard to earn from him. REALLY hard. I would take him out to hand graze him, shoo a fly away from my face, and watch as he flew the complete opposite direction from me, sometimes dragging me along a few steps. At first I thought to myself, "surely not! This horse isn't scared of me moving my hand! Perhaps there's a random tarp or trash bag or cat or tumbleweed that happened to blow by when I itched my nose." But no. There was no random scary thing causing him to two step away from me like I was a guy with bad BO asking a girl to dance. It was just me. To date, we've ridden with about 10 other horses in an arena, walked over a tarp a few times, ridden in a rain storm, and had fly sheets and masks put on without much of a fuss. I can tell he knows who I am, and although he's still wary, he's willing to let me mess with his head to an extent. I have to remember to respect that and not push him too far.
Mounting gave us several issues. The first being his need to shoot off like a bucking bronco at the finals in Vegas the second my bottom touched the saddle. If I tried to find my right stirrup he took that as a cue to go. Fast. Once we worked those kinks out (and we did work them out) we had to climb the next mountain which was standing still for me to get on. He squirmed and wiggled and circled and did everything but patiently wait for me to be ready to get on. You could tell he was anticipating something negative when he saw me, ready to ride, approaching his side and gathering my reins to get on. Winning this battle took a combination of a TON of slow, easy, non-threatening rides and some ground work. I don't know what this poor horse went through while his previous owner was away but he was not having a good time.
Riding him was interesting. He's got a lovely forward walk that makes Marvel feel like a sloth. For nothing short of a month we walked. Only. Everywhere. He wouldn't let me put leg on him. When I spoke he would either shoot out from under me or stop dead in his tracks (and you could never tell which one he was going to do). He was scared of everything, bushes, trees, sand, shadows, dogs, me talking, parked trailers, round bales, seriously everything. Slowly I worked on desensitizing him. We started in the round pen with me hand-walking him over every inch of sand. When he was calm in the round pen for about 5 good rides we graduated to the small arena. We made circles till we were sick with dizziness. It was a good 3 months till we moved into the large arena. But all the work paid off because once the jump field was ready we went right in and trotted like he'd been doing it his whole life.
Speed is a problem for us. Leg or kissing sounds activate him like a trigger word to a sleeper agent. It's like he doesn't even think, he just does and then thinks about it later. My philosophy is that if you can't do it at the walk, you sure as heck aren't gonna be able to do it at the trot and if you can't do it at the trot, don't even let the word canter touch your lips. This approach seems to be a bit controversial among friends of mine but they've all supported me nonetheless. With some work we've gotten to where we can walk with good hand to mouth contact (before he resisted a lot) and we can trot on a nice loose rein. His head will still come up about as far as it can and he isn't very bendable or balanced in our circles but we're working on it. For now I'm happy that we aren't having a tug of war game where I am bound to lose.
Jumps actually don't seem to be a problem for him. We trot Xs like a well seasoned school horse. He's popped over a few cross country jumps no problem and he is very keenly aware of where is little pony feet are as trot poles don't phase him in the slightest. We haven't cantered any jumps yet but he's well on his way!
The plans for him have been altered since I've got two big willing Thoroughbreds to go cross country with. He's so adorable, well put together, and I feel he would be more comfortable jumping boring things in a non-threatening arena so he's on his way to becoming a money winning hunter pony! We need to still work on leads, canter to trot transitions, not spooking at everything he's never seen before, and getting him into some new situations to really test his mental stability. He's got a long way to go but those days when I end up in the dirt and wonder what I'm doing with this feral pony are few and far between. We've made so many other minor accomplishments that make me smile every day but are too minimal (and numerous) to list here.
I just love when I walk in the barn and hear his little, kind of feminine, neigh and when he watches me walk away and then come back with a saddle and he still looks calm and happy. That is enough of an accomplishment for me.
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