Catching Up - Trail Ride

This will be the last post that will be filling in what has happened in the last while.
July 18th
Today I went out thinking that since Woody was acting pretty confident and curious on the ground outside, I should see if I could ride him and maintain that same mind frame. So, I saddled him up and went outside to play and get my leadership established. He was doing great and I went over to this big stack of flat pieces of wood, circling him while I stood on him. I disengaged his hindquarters to say game over and he came to me and put his front feet on the boards that I was standing on! I couldn't believe he offered that, but it was great and we just hung out on the boards and I gave him lots of scratches.
I figured he was prepared and in a good frame of mind, so I tried getting on from the ground, but he wouldn't stand still. After a couple of times of trying, I decided to set it up for success and I took him inside the round pen and practiced getting on and off. Once he was good with that, we spent a bit of time focusing his thoughts because he was getting worried with Mom riding Charlotte outside the fence. So, we did direct and indirect rein exercises around barrels, cones, and the pedestal, until he started really thinking about what he was doing. He settled down after we did a bit of sideways along the fence, so I opened the gate, but did not ask him to go through right away. I was proud of him because I knew he was really focused on me and not about getting near his friend because he did not rush out the gate when I asked him to go out and he stopped when I asked him to right outside the gate and sat and waited.
So off we went! We followed Charlotte at first, but soon enough Woody was secure enough with his surroundings that he wanted to lead. We went on the newly mowed paths through our forest (thanks Daddy) and we were doing great until Mom saw a dear crossing the road in front of us and reminded me to keep contact with his head and be prepared to grab one rein.
Then it happened. 3 deer popped out of the bushes right beside us and both horses switched to being Right-Brained Extroverts in a split second. Woody took off down the path (positive side to the spook: I had my first canter on him!) and I went with him until I remembered to one rein stop him. He eventually bended and stopped and stood there processing what just happened. However when Charlotte saw the deer, she leaped sideways and Mom wasn't prepared and she flew the other way. Charlotte stayed right next to her and began to eat grass (clearly she was over the deer). I rode Woody over to Mom and she got up and wasn't hurt. She then Put Charlotte on an incline and mounted from the ground! (Big achievement because she has never done that before.) So we were off again and we proceeded down the trail. We didn't run into any challenges until we reached the pond and Woody didn't want anything to do with it. So we approached and retreated until he was confident enough to go near the water on the path. A little while later I asked him to put his nose on a log and didn't understand at first. He got worried, so I slowed down, became more clear and waited on him. He finally figured it out and had a big lick and chew. We decided to head back to the barn and everything went smoothly on the way back. It was a big day for us because we have never been trail riding without Terrie with us, and that gave Mom and I (and the horses) a sense of accomplishment.
Things to work on: Keep practicing being able to switch tactics for when Woody switches Horsenalities.
~Eden