Escape from Hooverville

One other peculiarity of Klaus's, which I swear was first told to me and met with dismay on my part (I am not a cold bastard. I really do like animals): If he spooks, beating on him makes him better.

This runs contrary to what works for most hot bloods, but Klaus was largely warmblood, and, no offense, dumbblood in the truest sense. The kind of dumbblood that gave you a two second notice. Ohhh.... that...   looks...    scary...   ?...   !     Maybe...    I...    should...    run...   away  .  Yeah ... ,    I'll...    run...  ...  Hey...   !...   Why...   aren't...  we...   running...  away...? Plenty of time to get secure in the saddle, plan your defenses, and maybe even call the pizza delivery guy. Klaus was large enough that you did need a good defense, and you might need the pizza to replenish your strength.

Unfortunately, when Klaus was being spooky and balky, the only thing to fix it was to circle him. This broke his concentration (dumbblood, you know?) and freed you to continue on your merry way. If he was really balky, you circled him three or four times, then once the other way, and he really didn't care where he walked as long as it wasn't in the circle. Sometimes the crop was needed, too.

Apparently, in a show environment, this might need to be ratcheted up a few degrees.

Klaus was afraid of walking down the driveway between  the two rings. O.M.G. People were lined up along the ring fences. ...Scary... Attempts by his owner to lead him on were futile. So we, uh, "pirouetted" as it were, down the driveway. The behemouth would walk one step, plant his feet,  threaten to go up, and I would spin him hard to the left, with crop if he wasn't moving, then try to straighten out and walk.

Oh good, three steps. Plant, threaten, spin, spin, spin, reverse... Ready now? Three more steps. Plant, squeal, back four steps. Damn!

OK, Jackass. Spin, spin, spin, spin. Reverse spin, spin, spin, reverse spin. Walk 6 steps. Snort, plant. Oh, for fuck's sake! Whip ~ moment's pause for processing ~ buck ~ march on calmly to the end and into the arena. Oh, for fuck's sake!

Hmmm... going in for an Eq class... hope the judge didn't just see all that.

Gains:

•  One vicious pink ribbon, out of a class of 8 or 10. It still mocks me.
•  Wisdom: I learned to check what stabling at a venue is like before I sign up.
•  A list of things to work on with my greenie.

Losses:          

•  Pride
•  Self respect.
•  A night's sleep worrying about Klaus crammed into Hooverville.
•  The next night's sleep feeling awful because I looked like/sort of was a horse abuser trying to get the damn German horse to pay attention and just walk, for crying out loud.
•  The rest of my class fees. We loaded up those boogers after the ill fated Eq class and boogeyed on out of there.