Don't pull on your horses mouth

My girls and I went horse back riding one day and I rode the little horse that had been a stud for 5 years and had never been out of his corral his whole life. They rode him around a little in the corral but when they took him out he got excited so they put him back and never took him out again until we bought him. We used him as a stud for 2 years but he never threw any size. He was a small horse just over 14 hands and we had thought it was because of the treatment he had growing up as he came from an outstanding blood line. After he did not throw any size we gelded him and started riding him.

He loved to go on trail rides, he would go all day and be just as happy as when he left. The only problem with it was he was scared of everything. 

I always harped at my kids and 4-H kids that there is never any reason to jerk on a horses mouth, they can feel a fly land they don’t need you pulling on their bridle, it just hurts, put your finger against your gum and press and see how it hurts and think about it being steel and hitting hard.

We came to the creek and he had never seen a creek before.  He was dancing around and acting like an idiot. The nice thing about him was he did not know he was bigger and stronger then you so he did not know he could run off so he just danced around.  We were riding bareback which was our custom most of the time.

I kept working him closer and closer to the creek but he did not want to put his feet in there. I told the girls to ride their horses to the other side where he would want to cross over.

When they got to the other side he was really excited and would go right to the edge and then jump back. I continued to work with him and finally he decided he was going to smell it. He put his head down and smelled and quivered all over. He raised his head and looked at the other horses and put his nose back to the water and smelled it, then he put his nose in the water and splashed around. When he started splashing his whole body relaxed and you could feel the air go out of his lungs which usually means he relaxed so I relaxed and grinned.

That stupid horse jumped that creek with his nose still in the water!  My feet flew up in the air and I laid right down on that horses back with my feet reaching for the moon. I would have done a backwards somersault right off that horse except I hit the end of the reins.  We lit on the other side with my legs still up in the air and all my kids laughing their heads off and yelling “don’t pull on your horses mouth” “never make the bit hit your horses gums” “there is no reason to ever pull on their mouths”.  Well blast it I did not have time to do anything! If he had not moved so fast I would have gone off but it was over with so fast I did not have time to fall off.