I Rode My Racehorse in the City... And Then This Happened

Hey guys, we got a crazy video for you today. I'm actually going to be riding my racehorse Nelson out with the Madison Mounted Police Unit today. We're going to Madison and going to ride through town. I'm pretty nervous. I don't know how this is going to go. I got to trust my preparation here and hope it works out okay. I used to do some training with the Madison Mounted Police, so this will be fun to get to ride out with them and see how they're doing with their horses. And then hopefully put Nelson to the test and see how well he handles the traffic and chaos out in the city. I'm a little bit apprehensive about this situation. If you think about it, we're used to riding in arenas or trails where there's like dirt and some room to bend them around, but out here it's like, I mean, there's pavements and signs and cars going by and cars honking at you on purpose and kind of everything in between. I'm hoping that the police horses are already really solid in this environment and that Nelson kind of assimilates with the herd. What's really hard about this is just essentially if, if the horse gets bothered or upset about something, you have to just go to some control strategies, not really recovery strategies. You're really in this situation relying on your preparation more than anything else, but a little more further to go and we'll see how it goes. I'm trying to think if this is Bucket's third year or fourth year. I'm going to cheat and go to his card so that we get the actual stats here, but it's 2024. So yeah, he's going into his third year. Let me give you a Bucket's card too, so that way, you know, yeah, so this guy was privately owned and he's a pretty not reactive as far as like, he'll kind of take stuff in, think about stimulus. And I always tell people for our world, no offense Bucket's, you don't need to be the world's bravest horse to be a good police horse, but if you're curious, if you're willing to be a good partner, anything's a game. All of our guys work for us. I say guys, cause we ended up being all geldings right now. We've had mares in the past. It just turns out we're kind of the all boys club currently. And as much as a trial for them to make sure this is going to be a good job for them, not too emotionally stressful. And then after that, they'll get their badge after they've done their trial period. So we've had horses in the past that this hasn't been the right job for them. Like it's just too stressful. One of those horses that was recently retired is not like a kid's lesson horse. So he still gets all the people of just not like buses, fire trucks, et cetera. So a couple of things I'm thinking about right now with Nelson, you know, sometimes he wants to move his feet and look around. What you don't want to do in this situation is just be managing them the whole time. If we get into a really hairy situation where I do need to manage him, then I will, but you can't have that be the majority of your ride. So right now I'll just redirect his feet and just walk some circles. If he wants to move around schools out, I guess there's just all kinds of noises and sounds. We had a dog come barking at the fence over here. So about a little while ago I sold Nelson to a lady. She is going to be riding through town to get out to the trails. So I'm still going to be competing with him at the retired racehorse project. But what's nice about selling him before the competition instead of after is now I'm still training him and I can help him get ready for what she wants to do with him. I don't know if you've met Becky Holbin and then she's on Thor today. Nice to meet you Becky. Thanks for letting us join you guys. We'll see how far we get before somebody stops and talks to us too. I always say we're lucky we don't get paid by the mile because I'd owe the city money every day. So we ran into our first obstacle here. We got a sidewalk with a step down. I think that depth perception is a little tricky for him. There we go. Sorry. It's a country horse not a city horse. Are you okay? Do you think he'll be okay with people petting him? Yeah. Up to you completely? I mean he's really sociable with people. Because usually we'll probably just park right up here and... Hi guys! I can't promise he won't nip. Well right here right now at this point is it okay if we park in your driveway for a little bit? Hey do you guys want to say hi to Buckets and Thor? If you'd like to you can certainly come up and you can pet him on the side of the neck or the side of the shoulder here. Yeah it's good talking with you guys. Have a good day buddy. Uh oh. Uh oh we got a code brown. I always think like my mom told me to get life skills and I don't know if this is what she pictured but like here's what I'm doing so. It's still mind boggling to me because like if this breaks like every safety thing that you would do like beyond pavement. There's so many things. I always like to go with the slogan of like what could possibly go wrong because you know the list of what could. Oh man yeah. Like you're really trusting your preparation to be able to do this. We're horsing around. Yeah. No he didn't care about the cars at all. I rode him in my playground with dirt bikes going by. Yeah he handled that really well. I was hoping he was prepared to handle this and he's got a good disposition but you never know until you put him in this situation with so many new things. Whenever we have neighborhood ride days like this it just it reinforces because we're always telling these guys people energy is friendly energy right? So you could be here with 25 you could be at the football game with 25,000 obviously they're picking up on that energy. But if they're thinking no they just want to pet me or you know it's I think it's a pretty good reinforcement for them as well so keep moving. All right. You good Becky? All right. Have a good day. Enjoy your swim. We're a bit envious if we're being honest. See if I can zigzag him through here. Where's he going? Doing the slalom? Yeah. Maybe just see if. I want to try that. Yeah buddy. Good job Nelson. He's a solid thinker huh? Yeah. Like I feel like he drops his head thinks about it versus. Yeah I mean he's only four years old. Yeah I mean and to us we know this is like a quiet neighborhood compared to State Street or something but to Nelson he's never been around anything like this. You know it's all totally different from garbage cans to the curbing and all the different colors and signs. And interesting. Interestingly for some of these guys it almost seems like the garbage cans the stationary objects are harder for them to identify is it safe or not just because it's not moving so I don't think they can take it in as like you know is it problematic or not. So I remember Thor's first season we get down to the Capitol Square and I think you're gonna have friends on your right Becky and there's a whole row of porta potties and he's like what is that? And I mean I have a general mistrust of porta potties too so we spent the next half hour doing like a poetry treat until he's like it's okay so hi you guys want to come say hi to some horses? Oh that was a full stop. How long do you guys stay out here for? So on like today an eight hour shift we usually get four or five hours of riding on like a bigger event day where you're on like that ten or beyond hours a lot of times we'll find time to get back to the trailer get them on hay get them on water. We want some full like some food flow and happy tummies and then just to get away from that the stimulus I think is huge too the sights and sounds let them just have a mental break before we go out and do it again so. Good? Yeah. I'll follow you. Hey puppy. My turn. Hi. How are you guys? Good. ACDC was in town at Camp Randall and he and I worked that together and what's always funny is like those larger events they'll give you a set list with like here's when the pyrotechnics are halftime that's not accurate so you get surprised stimulus anyway and they have like confetti cannons which we couldn't see you could just hear the kind of the percussion out from outside so we get through all those and we're having one of those moments we're like yeah we did great and then a set of like ground air fireworks so we got a bonus training rep but he did pretty well with it. I didn't think he was gonna ride over that he's handling this really well I'm impressed with Lambo's being good too like Lambo's never done this either he's just my like seasoned event horse yeah I feel like that's important that like if you got one in the back taking that like zone five stimulus like yeah can make or break for help for hurt for a head but I was honestly quite nervous about this I've been worried about it for a few weeks I would 100% be lying if I said like when we do concerts or football or the bigger stuff like when I get one of these horses that's still like learning it you know like I'll get the blood pressure up a little bit here and there because you can have a great working relationship but like when there's that you know unannounced run plan or surprise stimulus like you gotta there's where you're doubling down on your trust right to be like hey we're gonna work through this together so because we still jump on like your patreon pull stuff apart to use for lesson planning so like we appreciate you coming out too it's just uh I feel like there's a lot of good stuff that transfers over for even if it's like the ranch for disability stuff to like communication model and stuff that goes that way so and I always tell people never gonna be like an event or or ride at that kind of high level where you're showing but the more we can put into knowing our skills that are making it better for these guys I think that's a pay it back to them like it keeps it fair for them with with what we're asking them to do how's it going thank you thanks and the horses aren't bad either hey I've been a cop since what 2013 you had asked me in 2008 if I had been a cop I'd have been like not a chance and you would have been like yeah right hey off the track thoroughbred owners this is Ryan Rose and I'm here with my off the track thoroughbred Nelson and we are doing a full series on restarting an off the track thoroughbred on my patreon page so if you want to know how to navigate some of the troublesome spots that can come up with an off the track thoroughbred it's gonna be on there and how to really set that horse up for success to be relaxed and trying hard to understand what you're asking for and really give them a good foundation for any sport that you might want to do with them these horses are super versatile and can go a lot of directions we're gonna cover all that on my patreon page I'll leave a link below hope to see you there I don't think I see anybody so I'm just gonna I'm gonna have to burn it now all right so I mean you know back in the day before we had like cell phones or GPS or all the technology that helps us kind of navigate our world right now all right I mean probably back before the days of paper maps right cowboys cowgirls would get out there they'd work all day on moving pushing cattle around out out on the range and then as the sun would go down they need to figure out a way to get back to camp right trying to find a trail in the dark can be challenging a lot of times those cowboys and cowgirls would just take like a lantern and they would hook it to the side of the saddle so they could illuminate the trail as they would walk home back to camp so if you think about it it's probably the earliest form of satellite navigation I told that joke to the woman from the Salvation Army who is videoing like a promo thing with us I could hear her eyes roll you guys ever had any dogs come chase after you we've run on the occasional off leash dog our usual strategy is we'll just turn and face the horse and start to advance on the dog and I haven't met a dog yet that really wants to pick that fight so yeah and I think it just it works for these guys brains too because if they're taking that space versus turning and going I got chased by a coyote in a pasture in Colorado one time pass I was uh looking for some stray cattle and this coyote just came blasting out of the hillside after us and I assumed she had like I don't know what they call baby coyote cub man she meant business oh I turned around and I ran out of there as fast as my horse could go because she looked ferocious oh wow this was great I don't think I could be any more happy with Nelson and Lambo Lambo's never been a city horse either I think Nelson knows we're on the way home though he's picking up the pace yeah that's where they have like a built-in just yeah like it's like somehow we can wind it on wherever but they're gonna know where that trailer is so pro tip here if your horse ever does get impulsive on the way back home a couple things when you first get back to the trailer do something to make it a little uncomfortable don't just get off and let him eat grass to motivate them but another thing you can do is like I don't want to get ahead of the police officers here so rather than pulling back on both reins like this to make him go slower I'm just gonna make him more antsy if I do that I'll try to just redirect him and I can put him into a little bit of a shoulder in move here like this and that little bit of lateral move eats up some energy and now you can see them gaining distance on me or I can ride a little serpentine behind them and kind of eat up some ground and some energy that way and so I'm just bending them side to side and getting his ribcage to bend and so I'm just giving him something to do to keep him busy and get his mind back on it but yeah you can see he's ready to get there luckily we're almost here where we got some grass that I might do a couple little hind cordy yields or something I don't want to move his feet too much on this pavement that's good question you just are you just giving a little flexion then and then having the shoulders continue kind of yeah so you can do the shoulders in where he's walking in a partial disengagement like this or you can just ride a serpentine but the the secret with the serpentine is to hold this until you get a little bend through the ribs and then take it back the other way get a little bend through the ribs okay not just back and forth back and forth have him kind of wind around that leg a bit and yes exactly okay thank you yeah I'll be honest I was pretty nervous I didn't know how it was gonna go you know cuz I'm like if he gets wadded up right off the bat and we're on pavement and everything it's I just it could could go south pretty quick the good news is we get paid by the hour yeah you better time in the world to work it out if we need yeah but I mean I think that's the name of the game sometimes is like we're gonna end on a win no matter what that win looks like right we're gonna find a win for these guys so that next time out we're we're starting at that win right but what can we do for a thumbnail picture for the video you guys are the best thank you so much appreciate you guys good to meet you guys too so you're welcome I'm glad it went great so I was that was impressive yeah he's probably ready to move on he's not great at standing still he's like there is some grass I could eat right here that'd make me feel a little better I don't even have any idea where we're at here think you're gonna be riding a horse in person yeah I was not on my bingo card there we go