First Drive

Tiffany got hitched up for her first drive at our place on Friday evening. Our neighbors and friends Kevin and Wendell came out to help as they have much more driving experience than me. Wendell took the reins first (which turned out to be a good idea).

Things got off to a rough start when Tiffany was a little balky going out of the barn, then someone knocked over some lattice, and just as she was about to step outside, Will walked by carrying a salt block (scary scary scary). This is partly my fault-I have never taken her into that part of the barn, and she hasn't been into the barn that often. Once she was out in the open, Tiff decided she didn't want to go anywhere. No way, no how. At this point she wasn't scared, she was just being a major brat (the four-letter b-word would be more accurate, but let's keep this blog clean :-) ).

Kevin ended up leading Tiff through the empty paddock to the back fields. Wendell drove her for a little bit and she got balky again. Kevin had to lead her, again. We finally got her in the arena, and she proceeded to trot around, settle in, and then decided to throw a hissy fit, again. When she finally got settled, I hopped in the cart, and then--- you guessed it! Another hissy fit! I got out, she started working well, so I finally got to get back in and drive her around. She was great to drive, had a great mouth-just a light touch on the reins and she would turn. I drove her for a few minutes before we headed back to the barn, with Wendell driving, and there was no drama. At least we ended on a good note after Tiff decided to be a total brat to start out. Wendell, who raised and trained Tiffany, was shocked at how she behaved. I was shocked, too -every time I drove her before I brought her home, she was perfect-- she just plodded along as calm as could be.

This is definitely something that Tiff is going to need some work with, but for the next few drives we'll have supervision. I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't feeling a bit apprehensive about driving her by myself by the way she acted Friday. But, Tiff's just going to have to get over being a b!@#$, and I'm going to have to get over being intimidated. I know how to drive, I know I can handle her (at least on the lead line and in the round pen), so there's no reason we an't hitch up and have a nice drive.

We had a good round pen session on Saturday morning, and I'll write a post about that later this week.