Ok. So, I have been kicked before and all that jazz. But I have to say, I was a little heartbroken when Lucy kicked me today. We walked at liberty to the round pen, and then when I approached her shoulder to halter her (she was sideways to me), she swung her hind end around, pinned her ears, and all in one motion kicked out. She got my left knee. Hard. It wasn't one of those too excited, too much energy, wrong place, wrong time deals. I could tell from her reaction to me after that she had intended to hit me. I guess she didn't like her time off.
She paced around with her ears back glaring at me. It took me a split second to push her around. I swung the extension stick at her and made her lope circles. She continued to try to kick, and (unfortunately), every time she threw a leg out, I popped her pretty hard on her bum. She was blatantly disrespectful (which I knew she was. She's pretty pushy.). She ran mindless circles until sweat was coming off of her. Everytime I gave her permission to stop, she would come at me. So I pushed her out and away back in circles.
She probably ran around for thirty some-odd minutes before I left the pen. I hate quitting, but I was afraid she was going to kill herself or go lame. She hadn't warmed up or anything, and her legs kept bumping the panels. So I walked out of the pen, opened her stall, and sent her to it. She was heaving and breathing really hard. When I walked near her stall, I could feel the heat coming off her. I gave a a small bit of water (since you're not supposed to give a hot horse big drinks of cold water until they're cooled off). She was still really pushy with me, even though I could tell she was tired. So I left her in a stall for a few hours. When I came back down to feed them all, I fed her half her feed by hand. Every time she was rude, I pushed her away, then gave her to reproach with a better attitude. She seemed "sorry." I know she didn't remember kicking me, just that I ran her in hard circles for a really long time.
My dad came home, saw my swollen leg, and said he was going out to teach her a lesson. Luckily he listened to my thing about how she wouldn't remember what she did, only what I did to her, and that she wouldn't realize why she was being punished. He gave in and didn't go down to her.
Tomorrow I'm going to go back out like nothing happened and see where we are. I know I need her respect. She trusts me, but she's running over my trust. I didn't think she would be like this, that Aztec would be my pocket pony and Lucy would give me trouble. I guess now that she knew I wasn't a threat, she wanted to get my annoying self away Hopefully I can figure out a way to earn her respect without being the typical bad-guy. That isn't the kind of trainer I am, and I will not let myself get involved in that. I think some people use extreme force and find it's easy enough, and then they get too comfortable with that method. I know I'm one to fall into some comfortable routine, so I'm not going to even go there.
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