A Horse With Two Behinds

Mon Aug 15, 2005

Actually, multiple horses with two assholes apiece!

Yep, survived yesterday's wild and woolly trail ride! Wasn't the usual posse (the ones on the Midnight Ride through the Woods last Wednesday), but a different circle of folks I don't usually associate with. The woman who organized it has been "off" for 8 months due to being pregnant and giving birth and recovering therefrom, so this was her and her horse's first trail ride since last Fall! The next lady in the group, I've mentioned her before: she rides a PSYCHO Arabian mare that she calls "Quzqo's Twin", which I'm beginning to be insulted by, because her mare is a total nutjob, and Quzqo's much prettier and now has GAZILLIONS more fleabites than that mare...the woman is as psycho as her horse, has no equitation skills, and enjoys riding in sandals, flip flops, or like yesterday, no-heeled slip-on loafers..

Next in our happy band of travellers is the woman who killed Tab the colicking TB, on her new fresh-off-the-track TB Mare, "Tesla"...wearing heeled street boots and no helmet, and her henpecked husband, on his retarded QH, "Ducks"...he was stylishly attired in running shoes, shorts, and no shirt. I was hoping the deer flies would be out in full force that day, heh heh. Believe me, him with no shirt was repellent enough.

Finally, a sane person, my friend with the Paint mare, she'd officially left the barn last week, but trailered in for the day just for this trail ride, she was bored riding by herself at her house, LOL!

Started out okay, I rode Quzqo with his bitless bridle (just gotta tempt Fate I think). Was pretty uneventful for the first hour or so, we even did some trotting and cantering on a nice wide dirt road. The Psycho Arabian ("Chickadee") was WAAAAY ahead of us...reminded me so much of Tezlu, but Tez wasn't THAT crazy, even on a bad day...head high, back hollowed, tail wringing, cantering in place while her idiot rider sawed on the reins and rode English with her feet sticking out in FRONT of her...have never seen an English seat quite like that, maybe it was the no-heeled slip-on loafers that did it. The Husband on the QH, with his heavy-handed horsemanship, had HIS horse all wound up into a ball about to explode, every hundred yards or so they'd have a "disagreement" (Ducks would decide we'd gone far enough and try to turn back), which involved rearing, spinning, and usually being cantered in circles all over the road. Tesla the TB would also have occasional issues, kicking at anything that got too close to her rear, and her murderous rider would spin her in circles, or go cantering or galloping off ahead of the pack without warning.

Making it more interesting, the ex-pregnant lady's horse, "Leroy" was in love with "Chickadee", so when Chickadee went tearing off ahead of the pack, Leroy would pitch a fit, which included prancing in place, ducking his head, spinning, and trying to buck...his rider was TERRIFIED out of her gourd, and through the whole ride Sandy (the woman with the paint) and I pretty much baby-sat her, telling her when to turn Leroy into a circle to get him moving so he couldn't start to pitch a fit...she had a curb bit on him, and was using both hands to pull...which didn't help the situation any...add into that she'd continuously hunch forward in fear AND was wearing running shoes...ARRRRGH! (she DID have a helmet on...I'll give her that much). We were all aware she had a newborn baby at home and couldn't afford to get herself injured...part of the problem was Chickadee's rider who would keep tearing off ahead of the group, which would get Leroy upset, being separated from his love interest, and then he'd pitch his fits...couldn't get it through Chick's rider that she should TRY to stay near for Leroy's benefit (and his rider). Nope...talkin' self-centered jerks here.

The married couple pretty much were on their own personal trail ride, for all the consideration they didn't show...just suddenly TEARING off down the road, which of course upsets the other horses, who also want to tear off with them, then they'd come TEARING back (remember how the woman TORE around the indoor arena with Tab just minutes before his fatal colic attack?). The husband would start to smoke these small CIGARS on the trail...AAGH! The stink was obnoxious enough, we won't even get into the FIRE DANGER, Hellooooo??? Yeah, I love going out into the forests to smell stinky cigars! Wear a shirt next time if you don't want to get bug bites (he said the cigar was his mosquito repellent...yeah, right)

The consensus among us three poky folks was that we didn't care to ever go riding with that couple again...when we finally turned back, they rode on ahead at a fast canter/hand gallop, went over a hill, and haven't seen them since! When we finally got back to the barn, their horses were turned out, had NOT been hosed off or washed down...u-huh...tells me a lot right there.

Fortunately nobody got hurt, nobody got dumped, the ex-pregnant lady is now very shaken up by her horse's bad behavior (er, could we have maybe LUNGED the beast before riding him??), the broad with the Crazy Ayrab was totally oblivious to how her behavior had possibly endangered her friend...the ex-pregnant lady thanked Sandy and myself for sticking with her and helping her out, she was truly terrified near to tears at a couple of points there, poor thing. Been there, done that!

For the record, once again, Quzqo was the BEST-behaved horse on the ride!! Even the Paint mare had a major spook-fit when a little birdie flew out of a tree, lol, but Quzqo was golden! We had a couple of disagreements about whether he should be allowed to run to catch up to the crowd after he stopped for a pee-break (I won the argument, for the record), only after he settled down to a petulant walk, did I get him into a trot, we trotted the 1/4 mile or so to catch up, he started slowing, so I spurred him and MADE him trot right on past and waaaay up the road, even making him canter, not what he expected...he wanted to trot, catch up, then dawdle along behind the Paint until he lagged behind and had to trot to catch up again. Got a lot of complements on how well he behaved, even a resentment-filled comment from the nut on the Crazy Ayrab. IMO, it's not the horse's fault most times, it's the loose nut behind the wheel.