A New Career Path

Sat Jul 24, 2004

Embarking on yet another career path, last night (Friday) Quzqo got introduced to the exciting world of letting toddlers ride him!! My niece and her two oldest children came by to see the new horse and pay their respects to Tezlu...we picked wildflowers to put on his grave...the damned coyotes had been at it again and had a nice deep trench dug...and at the bottom it was seething with fly maggots! Oh, hoorah! The boy, "GJ" asked "What's THAT?" and as my niece and I kicked rocks into the hole "Oh, nothing"...arrgh! But we bedecked the rocks with the flowers and the girl (Celine) left a carrot as well...I wonder how long THAT would stay there, with the other 20 horses in the pasture, ha! I didn't smell anything, but maybe they could and would stay away...it was obvious the flies (and coyotes) could detect some odor...poor Lou, harassed in death as in life. Unless those coyotes can lift big heavy rocks, I don't think they'll be bothering him any more.

Quzqo was easy to approach in the open pasture, and enjoyed the carrot...for some reason the boy didn't think Quzqo was going to eat him...he was always convinced Tezlu WAS going to, LOL! The girl insisted on leading Quzqo back to the barn...I helped of course (she's only 5)...the horse pretty much lead HER into the barn as you can imagine.

He endured being brushed by those two, and my niece was very impressed that the horse was so calm (she's the one Tez threw into the fence when she was a teen) (ah, memories!!). I lunged him to get the P&V out, and then we tacked him up to see how he might do in lead line.

It probably helped that it was the end of the day, the horse was dragging and yawning, ha! But surprisingly both kids were able to get him moving, turn him this way and that, stop him, etc...he complied just fine! Both kids even were able to ride him unassisted, and they were walking him all over the arena! Not a funny twitch or spook or tail-swish at all...little 5 & 6 yr olds riding him like old pros!! (neither one had ridden a horse alone as far as I knew).

Now my niece has to compile proper Lead Line outfits for both kids by August 21, LOL! Luckily it's a two-day show, so each kid has a chance to compete!