Everytime we circled the end of the arena that was open to the pastures (where the herd was), Rio looked at it suspiciously and tried to avoid the opening as much as possible. Instead of joining most of the brave others in bringing the cows in, we decided to hang back at the other end of the arena. Rio typically does not like cows in a crowd and especially thinks horned cows in a crowd are to be avoided at all costs.
The first phase was to only bring one cow in at a time. This did not seem to bother Rio (or Doc for that matter) very much. Lynn taught us how to move the cow around and how to keep the horses on the cow's tail in order to move it and stay with it. The hard part was keeping the rein hand very loose and low. I tend to pull in her mouth too much and not use my legs effectively. When you watch good cow horses and riders, you can see that the rider really trusts the horse to go after the cow. In many cases, the rider is just holding on while the horse does the hard stuff.
Doc took to this very well. Seems like his "cow pony" ancestry really shows up when the cows are around. He chased the cow and did'nt seem bothered. He also seemed like he knew what to do. Sometimes all a horse needs is a job to make them very responsive and energetic.
Rio did okay too. It was fun (and a bit of work) to work the cow. You really had to concentrate and try to keep the horse focused.
We worked the individual cows and then brought the herd in so we could learn a little cutting. We first practiced loping around and around the herd. This helped the horses become accustomed to the cows moving around and gave them a way to move their feet. Rio was not as enthused about going into the herd to try and cut out a cow. This was definetly not her favorite part of the day. As usual though, she didn't spook or anything. She just got a bit more goofy than normal and tried to avoid the moving cows.
Toward the end of the day, we worked with a remote controlled, mechanical cow. This was FUN. The "cow" is attached to a line that runs the length of one of the walls of the arena. The cow can be stopped and turned around by the remote. I found this very challenging but a great way to teach the horse what to do. Rio really figured out what to do about 1/2 way through and was rolling back and f0llowing the cow like she had done it all her life toward the end.
I can't wait for our next chance to work with cattle. Lynn at Smoke Rise ran a very nice clinic. We learned quite a bit and had the chance to work on things we needed work on. It was a small group so we got lots of attention and riding pointers. Lynn taught us how to use our spurs the right way and helped us understand a bit more about leg pressure and balance. Unfortunately, Brenda and I had to leave at 4pm as I had to get back to get the kids to football practice. Otherwise, I think we would have stayed until midnight!
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