Drove My Horse...Again!

Tue Aug 14, 2007

Another beautiful evening, I was feelin' pretty good (comes from sitting on my butt all day at work & staying off the ankle, lol). Luckily Quzqo was in his stall when I got to the barn tonight, but he hadn't been fed, so he was Displeased. Gave him his 1/2 scoop of grain to shut him up, & when he was done, he got hisself a brushin'!

Judging from the way he was trying to dig a hole in the concrete of the aisle, I knew it'd be foolish/stupid/death wish to just tack him up right then and there, so he earned himself a trip down to the round pen & got his fat butt lunged for about 15 minutes in the deep, strength-sucking sand, ha! When he was slowing on his own, dropping his head and licking & chewing and looking at me with pleading eyes...I figured it was enough, & back to the barn we went!

THAT hike about killed me though, what w/walking through that soft arena sand & then going UPhill, gaah! So much for my ankle not hurting all day!

Even though there were quite a few people around the barn, I felt good enough to try an experiment. With Coos in the cross-ties, I harnessed him up (BIG surprise, he let me put the bridle on him w/o him kicking up a major fuss! He put up a minor fuss, but not a major one!). Then, with him still in the cross ties, I brought the cart up behind him in the aisle & hitched him up!! Once all straps were secure, and after moving a couple of chairs out of the way, I was able to lead him down the barn aisleway and out the end door, cart & all!

I'd already asked Bob's permission to drive him in the empty "Bad Boyz" pasture, & managed to get him out there. Bad thing was, the gal who does the evening chores was in the process of turning horses out for the evening into the "Cannonball Run" pasture, which is where Quzqo spends his days. Even though he couldn't see them w/the blinders on, he could HEAR them galloping off up the hill to the pasture, and he got rather upset and agitated, the little shit! He wanted to take off, spin, fuss, he crouched back on his haunches a couple of times & got a pop in the ass for his trouble. I hadn't even gotten IN the cart yet, and was in no hurry to do so until His Emperorness decided to calm down and behave!! He did only after I got him pointed away from the pasture & there ceased to be horses running around...then I got in the dang cart.

He did pretty good, the ground was pretty bumpy with plenty of ridges where old fence lines used to be, and we discovered the SCARY way that there are large critter holes dug in there (yes, he stepped in one & spooked himself, but he was walking slowly so no harm done). There were two strange horses up in my Farrier's ex-pasture (divorced y'know), and they freaked out of their brains at the sight of us, LOL! I don't know if they'd sold the house & that was the new people's horses, but they were NOT happy, snark! Ditto the residents of Cannonball Run, they were snorting and spooking and stampeding and blowing...which got Coos upset, but oh well.

After a while in the pasture, tired of dodging critter holes and dealing with Quzqo's temper tantrums (barn sour? herd bound?) we left the pasture & went out into the driveway, down and out onto the road, down to another driveway, around the side yard a bit, back out onto the road...it was getting towards dusk & the light was fading, so I didn't want to stay out there too long.

Led him back down the aisleway & to the cross ties & was able to unhitch him w/o a hitch! GREAT to know I can do this now! Poor boy was yawning & ready for beddy-bye, LOL!

What a good horsie!