How the Stinker Pony Got His Name

When D brought the Stinker down to me, she stayed for a few days to give us lessons and help smooth the transition.  AKA help him deal from going a professional rider to having me flopping around.  Also, attempt to teach me not to tense up when he goes into his default mode of OMG I MUST PRANCE!!!!  He was wonderful and I sent her on her way assuring her that we would be wonderful.

The next day I rode him thinking that we would have a nice short walk trot canter ride.  And the little stinker came out to play.  I discovered I had bought an incredibly athletic pogo stick.  Without D, he was really unsure and tense.  When he gets unsure and nervous, he turns of his highly intelligent brain and switches to BABY BRAIN.  As soon as I got on, he started cantering...in place....with his chin tucked to his chest.  Oh and did I mention that S had ridden him the day before and I forgot to drop my stirrups.  I am now on a spring loaded cantering in place horse and I feel like a jockey.

I decided the sensible thing would be to ride it out and then when he calmed down I could get off and drop my stirrups.  Silly me.  Little did I know when I tried to ride it out it would just cause him to get more forward.  We went bounding around with him swapping leads, swinging his haunches around, and me getting more and more tense which just fed into the problem.  The great thing was while I was lacking breaks I had excellent steering.  Thankfully, I am old enough that my baby brain didn't take over.  I finally got him to stop (not calm, but stopped long enough for me to get off to fix the stirrups) using the voice commands.  Thank goodness D had him spot on with the voice commands from lunging him.

I got my stirrups fixed and climbed back on.  This time I knew what to expect and was able to manage the oodles of energy slightly better.  We were able to trot and do a normal trot not a feet flinging saddlebred trot.  This was the first of many baby brain moments.

As soon as the ride ended he would be right back in my pocket looking so adorable I couldn't even be frustrated with how sore my abs were.  The moment when I started openly calling him stinker pony was the first night he was turned out with his group.  He had been getting daytime turnout, but this was the first time he was out at night.  Apparently since the lovely ladies across the fence were so attractive, he thought it was a good idea to play in the fence.  Needless to say he managed to scrape up his hind legs fairly badly and got almost a week off.  I hadn't even had him a week.  Between his antics in the pasture and under saddle he became Stinker Pony (in the most loving way possible).

Tired pony from too many shenanigans