More than a year ago, Capri bucked Rick off in the biggest bucking spectacle I had ever seen. We gave her the benefit of the doubt and figured she must have had some pain. We gave her a year of pasture rest, with lots of tender loving care. This spring, she began to show interest in working, so I started the process of restarting her under saddle. Saddle, bridle, ground-driving, ponying, the works. All done cheerfully and without a hint of unsoundness. Our farrier felt like she was almost ready to ride.
Rick loves to go on pack trips with his other horses, and so do a lot of other folks in our area, so we decided to teach Capri to pack. Packing a horse for a season before riding it can teach it to be willing and tractable, as well as get in it shape and teach it to balance a load. Generally, when a rider climbs on at the end of a packing season, the horse is relieved to have live weight on board and is ready to get to work.
With our humble goal in mind, Rick and I began the process of training Capri to accept a pack saddle and the myriad collection of assorted straps, buckles and what-nots that are part of the mountain-horse's getup. A pack saddle really is much, much different than a riding saddle, and we were very pleased and proud when Capri accepted it without so much as a flick of her tail. She ponied beautifully behind Rick's good saddle horse, and figured out how to go around stacked barrels (make-believe trees) without knocking them down. The second session started out just as well as the first. We decided to add hard-sided panniers to the saddle, which Capri accepted with no problem. Then we decided to add weight to the panniers. A forty-pound sack of grain was placed inside each pannier, and up they went on Capri. Still no problem.
We're not strangers to the pack-training process, having taught each of Rick's other horses to pack in the last couple of years. We know full well that a horse can throw a hissy fit when it first feels those loaded panniers on its sides, and we were prepared for Capri to spin away from us and show us a few tricks. What we weren't prepared for was for Capri to come forward, into me, in a full-blown bucking, snorting, farting explosion that simply wouldn't quit.
Near-death experiences are nothing new to mustang people, and can provide an exhilarating rush of adrenaline and a powerful sense of immortality. Heady stuff for a middle-aged gal whose second-most exciting activity in life is shoveling manure. My previous experiences, however, left me unscathed. This one didn't. I am recovering from a broken collarbone, six broken ribs, whiplash and two sprains to my shoulders. Fortunately, recovering is the operative word and I will be perfectly fine, but I've decided that thumbing my nose at the grave isn't the wisest thing for a mother of four to be doing.
Capri is fine and dandy, out standing in her field, without a care in the world. I'd prefer not to work with her again, knowing her capricious nature, but perhaps someone else is up for the challenge? Or perhaps someone has a field for her to be out standing in? Capri needs a new home, one where she can just be a mustang. She is good company for other horses, gets along with everyone, doesn't have any special needs and is lovely to look at. Could you be Capri's special new person?
