Best Laid Plans Of Horses and Women

Sun Nov 14, 2004

Funny how you plan one thing and something else entirely comes along!!

I abused Quzqo as usual this afternoon, lunging his brains out in the soft dirt of the outdoor arena, got him sweaty and huffing and puffing...considering it was hard to get him to canter, he sure seems to have the energy NOW! I suspect a summer of good grass and grain has something to do with it.

Anyway two adult boarders were dinking around on their horses in the outdoor arena (one woman has an Arabian mare who is (color-wise) the near-spitting image of Cusco...fewer fleabites and no dapples though)(lot taller and longer, but a very pretty head)...they finished riding about the time I finished lunging Himself...I brought him indoors and began tacking him up, figuring I'd just walk him around inside, do some bending exercises or whatever... But then the ladies had to say "Want to come on a trail ride with us, Sue??"

I did make them promise it'd be walking...no cantering or trotting if at all possible..heck, I wasn't even sure I'd be able to get up on the horse, much less trail ride! But I figured with two other people along it would be all right.

And it was, we had a very nice late-afternoon ride down the road to visit a mutual friend (she used to have 4 horses boarded there all summer, finally they moved into their new farmstead, VERY nice place)(hubby is a pharmacist, makes good $ it it shows!). Quzqo behaved admirably, like his "old self"...I'm sure being lunged into the ground beforehand helped a lot! Actually he behaved better than the other two horses...the Arabian mare was constantly jiggyjoggy trottrottrot and was waaay up ahead of us, the other horse, a QH, was spooking at this and worried about that and fearful of the other thing...but other than flinching whenever we heard gunfire (deer season does begin tomorrow after all), Quzqo did VERY well...made no effort to run off or even act up!! Ah, yes, it'd be SOOO easy to slip into that complacency again...u-huh.

For the record, it hurt like HELL to ride... the ole back muscles aren't healed up yet, that's obvious. We did have to do some trotting, I posted, and every time I came down in the saddle, OUCH!! Eventually I just stood in the stirrups if we had to trot...less pain that way.

I'm glad he did well though, I'm glad I did as well as I did (I'm paying for it now, OW!! Where's the heat pad!)...think we both earned a day off tomorrow.