Winter in FL 2011 – Maggie Part II

Before I arrived on Sunday Feb. 27th, Maggie went to her first dressage show being “Twice as Nice”. This is the first time she has been shown under saddle and I couldn’t be more pleased (other than being there to see it). Kim did a great job and Larry raved about how well behaved she was. Maggie did Training Level Test 1 with a score of 60.833. She got a 8 for her entry and halt which really pleased me. NO spooks at the judge’s booth. Some of her canter work was not perfect but considering she only had two month of work last summer and about a month with Kim, I was delighted. The judge’s comment was “Capable horse – Not always in front of seat & leg (canter work). Not bad for a pony that spends most of her time driving!
The weather was perfect for our visit to FL. Maggie, Cindy (my sister) and I spent every day driving doing mostly conditioning work and some dressage work. Larry only worked with us a bit on Monday and Tuesday when we went to Black Prong. More about that later…
Maggie has come a long way. She is much lighter in my hands but we still are having issues with her rushing her 40 meter circles. Getting her to the right speed and not too fast at the working trot is still a bit of a challenge. Out doing her conditioning work is a joy. One day, out on the road we had the following: large FedEx truck raced past us, BIG truck with flatbed full of pipes, two trucks with long horse trailers, horses running along the fence line, an attack burro charging the fence and numerous cars…. Not one spook and she kept her cadence trotting on the grassy side of the road. Needless to say, I am proud of her behavior and comfort level of doing her job even with a great deal of distraction.
Now to Black Prong… Tuesday afternoon Larry hauled us over for a ‘test run”. 90% of this adventure went better than expected. Hitching went well and she was very calm trotting down the road to the warm up dressage arena that was FULL of cones. Maggie has never seen cones before. Larry hopped of the back of the carriage to talk to one of his clients. I warmed Maggie up doing some small circles and then we tried the cones. NOT much drama and soon she was whizzing through them thinking that this was a great game!
After this entire positive, we headed out on some of the trails. Once again, we had NO drama and great willingness which I greatly appreciated. THEN we went to the Gator hole water hazard…. OK, we stopped in our tracks. Not a great deal of fighting BUT no forward movement nor backing. Just a frozen pony… Larry tried to push us into the water as she weaseled to the left…
Finally, she had ALL four feet in the water and no pushing or ‘encouragement’ from me forced forward movement. With two lead rope tied together, Larry kind of dragged her through the water and she took a rather big leap out.
Looks like we will have to go to plan B for the marathon. I bought my daughter Gretchen (my navigator) a nice pair of rubber boots and I guess we will try our best with a borrowed long line to keep Gretchen safe when I have to put her down in the water hazard to DRAG her through…. It won’t be pretty and I guess that is WHY we are going training level . Only time will tell if we can make it through.
With all this said, I must admit I am VERY proud of Maggie. Yes, she is a stubborn Princess Pony but she is a very safe pony to drive. The worst she does is to stop! Yes, this is frustrating but SO much safer than ponies that bolt, rear, buck and kick in harness. She has great heart and goes and goes IF there isn’t a large body of water in front of her . I can’t wait to return next Thursday for Black Prong.