Montaña de Oro: We're Back!

Actually, we got back late Wednesday night, but it has taken me this long to scrape up the motivation to write a blog post about it. The trip to Montaña de Oro was more challenging than I expected in several ways, and I think Finn and I were both pretty drained by the experience.

First off, the trails were more of a physical challenge than I expected. Many of the trails around the horse camp and towards the beach consisted of deep sand. While perfectly logical, I just wasn't prepared for that, especially because many of the trails also featured significant elevation changes. Fortunately, Finn was up to the job, thanks to our extensive riding all summer.

Sandy trail en route to the beach.

Next, the trails definitely challenged Finn's confidence more than I expected. There were many places where steps had been added to help resist erosion, and if there was more than one step close together, it became cause for consternation. I was definitely surprised by this, and there were several places where I had to get off to walk Finn through tricky parts of the trail. In fact, on day three, we encountered what pretty much amounted to a full-on flight of stairs, and I simply chose to get off and walk him back to camp. By that point, it was clear he wasn't getting more confident, but instead more anxious, so I figured it was time to cut our losses.

The beach also challenged Finn more than I expected. While I certainly wasn't expecting him to walk right into the surf without question, I didn't realize we would have so much trouble with clumps of seaweed, the way wet sand changes color when you step on it, or even the effect of hoof prints being left on fresh sand. Looking back I sort of wish I had lowered my standards a whole bunch and simply been happy with less, as even my best efforts fell short of accomplishing what I thought were reasonable goals. Live and learn, I guess.

Really not bad for first-timers.

Finally, the size of the group seemed to unnerve Finn more than I expected as well. After his success riding out with the group during the Washoe Lake overnight, I thought we were covered, but this environment was much less forgiving for a nervous horse and offered far fewer options for helping him stay with me.  I had some success just keeping him in front of the group when he was feeling a little amped, and we definitely had spans where he was able to relax and be in the middle, or even the back, so it's not like there are NO positives to note.

Bringing up the rear on day one.

Finn became extremely attached to Tiva during this trip. Perhaps I shouldn't have put him in a pen next to her... something I will consider for next time. But this wasn't a huge surprise; while S and I have worked on separation on our rides around home, I know Finn isn't fully confident when Tiva leaves us behind. If Tiva is behind us, he's usually fine, but Tiva going out ahead of us is a whole different story. He is by no means unmanageable or impossible over this, but it is difficult to have genuine connection with your horse when half his brain is locked on keeping track of his buddy.

Not saying they don't make a cute pair...

Finn's confidence definitely took a hit on this trip, and I'd have to say I think mine did, too. Especially because on day two I fell off Finn for the first time, and the second. Yeah, day two kinda sucked.

The first fall happened like this: I was riding along on a loose rein and Finn felt totally relaxed. Tiva was leading us by a horse length or two, and the rest of the pack was behind us. We were winding through some sandy trails towards the beach. Tiva tripped and stumbled, and my horse pretty much vanished from underneath me. There were some loose branches in the sand around where this happened, so they may have played a part in Finn's spook, but I'm not really certain.

I hit the ground with the reins still in my hand and, of course, tried to hold on to keep from losing my horse. Unfortunately that basically turned me into an unidentified potential monster trapping Finn in a mortal danger in his mind and he sent a double-barrel kick my way and connected with my right shin. At that point I am grateful I had the presence of mind to recognize what was happening and just let go. He blasted past the other riders at Mach 10 and galloped off like the terrified prey animal he was.

Luckily, and true to form, he didn't go far. With nothing further contributing to his terror, he crossed his flight line, realized he was alone and stopped to look for the herd, which was waiting where he had left us. I prepared to hike out there to fetch him, but he soon came bounding back, cutting through the brush, and headed straight for Tiva. After pausing for a few minutes to let our adrenaline wear off, I remounted and we continued on our way.

The second fall happened on the beach. I was trying to get Finn to step into the receding waves and he got startled and once again spun so fast it was like he practically disappeared from under me. Luckily this time I landed on my bum in front of him, in a position where I could hold onto my reins without risk of being kicked. After pulling back for a moment, he calmed down and realized it was just me down there.

I'm not going to lie, this is somewhat unnerving. I have sat through lots of Finn's spooks, but these were really in a whole different category when it comes to speed and suddenness. Maybe I would have held on better if I'd had my own saddle with it's lovely suede seat (I do find the saddle I'm borrowing from S very slippery to sit on), but who really knows? On a positive note, at least the saddle didn't spin like I've always worried about!

I am considering not riding in S's saddle anymore... which will basically amount to not riding anymore until I can get a new saddle. I have one en route from Smart Pak to try that I have high hopes for... I am REALLY hoping the Thorowgood T8 Jump saddle proves the answer for us.

But I am itching to get back on my horse. We finished out that second ride without any further problems; Finn was as relaxed as could be heading home from the beach, aside from being extra skeptical about a few things that had hardly bothered him on the way out. But still, I feel like we've now had a string of less-than-successful rides, and I'm impatient to begin re-building some positivity in our partnership.

Anyway, the third ride (on the next day) was the one where I turned back at the stairs. Apparently that trail was chock full of similar challenges, so I'm glad I made the choice that I did. In retrospect, I wish I'd have taken a few minutes to walk him down and up the stairs from the ground, but I don't want to waste time fretting over THAT of all things. We went back to camp alone, which he did willingly and with relative calm, although he was calling fairly regularly. After working him some on the ground, I tied him to the hitching rail and let him practice that for the next several hours.

He actually settled down quite well while the other horses were gone, but he had quite a melt down when Tiva returned, went out of sight to be untacked, and then went to her pen. It took several hours for him to really find peace on the rail.

The next morning, I tied him while I was cleaning his pen and getting ready to ride and was super pleased that he was contented to stand right off the bat. However, when S took Tiva to the trailer to tack up, he lost his cookies all over again and I ultimately elected to just stay at camp and let him work that out. While it was a bummer to miss the last ride, I felt it was the right decision for Finn at the time. Going out on those rides certainly wasn't helping him! He actually did quite well, settling down to stand pretty calmly only 30 minutes after the other horses left.

Realizing he hasn't been left here to die.

He once again had a bit of a fit when Tiva returned. In an ideal world I would have let him stand at the rail until he was over it, but with the long drive back to NV ahead, I had to settle for less.

All in all, the trip didn't go quite like I hoped, but that's life. Group setting and challenging trails like this are good for pointing out all our holes, and not so good for fixing anything. That is the attitude I am trying to take for all this... I now know more about where Finn and I are struggling and all I can do now we're home is do my best to fix it. More to the point, trying to fix these things on the trail wouldn't have worked; not with this group, not in that setting. Sometimes you just have to live to fight another day.

Yes, this was all somewhat discouraging. Yes, it has made me question my horsemanship and my goals for this horse. Yes, I shed some tears and had some lapses in positive attitude. In the end, however, that's just life.

I look forward to getting back to some routine riding and seeing where we're at. I feel like I am still in need of better tools and techniques for this horse if he is ever going to be a solid trail horse. I feel like I really need a better strategy for helping him navigate tricky things. But paramount in my mind at the moment is a commitment to setting us both up for success in the immediate future. I slipped up and over-faced him, not just on this ride, but on some of our other recent rides as well. Now we're both a little less confident, and only time and positive experience can repair that.

Token photo from the inland trails.