No Mutton Busting Please

Sat Jun 4, 2005

What's more fun that riding an Arabian horse? Riding an Arabian Horse in 82 degree weather with 95% humidity and a probable broken finger! Wheee!!!

(I was hammering a nail this morning, hammer missed the nail, hit another kind of nail, smashed my fancy Vietnamese gel nail right off. Pain still excrutiating)

Haven't done too much with Master Quzqo lately, what with company coming up last weekend (Hey! They DID have the Poker Run trail ride, with nearly ***40*** people/horses! I think we had more fun buying perennials though!), and scaring Quzqo so bad that he stepped on his front shoe and tore it off, leaving him unrideable until Sunday when the farrier tapped it back on (he's now VERY leery of anybody standing outside the fence...goody!)

Been mostly working on our clicker training and backing up through gates (maybe someday, out of a trailer!), and going on nice trail rides around the acreage...the other evening we went across the neighboring hayfield (probably a good 1/2 mile across) and onto the dirt road, and up and down that a bit...without a fuss or a snort (he used to be terrified of that road, it's pretty dark and closed-in by thick hardwood forests). The Drama Queen performances at the corner that would take him into that field (and AWAY from the barn) have disappeared, now he thinks it's a pretty good idea...we've been working on that, making a point to head that direction EVERY time, even if it's for a few feet, or a hundred yards...no more automatically turning right back towards the barn.

Today it was so freakin' hot (well, for us thick-blooded Northerners), poor Quzqo was draggin', so I didn't need to lunge him. We even did some nice cantering (on the wrong lead!) in the outdoor arena (nice, deep, soft sand, sucking every ounce of energy from the horse, heh heh)...we were loping down the straightaway, I just SAID the word "ho", before tugging on the reins, and the little shit dug his heels into the ground and slid to a stop like a reiner!! LOL!! He was more than happy to STOP! (he was wearing his big fat useless snaffle too!)

We went for a trail ride around the fenceline to cool off (shady!), he was gooder than gold 3/4 of the way around. Now, today at the barn they had a big to-do, which included pony rides, "Mutton Busting" (i.e. kids trying to ride sheep!), Goat Tying, a tack auction, and a horse auction...so the indoor arena was pretty packed with folks, and they were having a good time,
considering we could hear the cheering and hollering on the farthest fenceline! As we got closer to the barn, the noise became louder...plus the parking areas were crammed with cars, trucks, horse trailers...add to that, the black and white tobiano draft crosses in the front pasture were
cantering back and forth, kicking up their heels, squealing and fighting...that's when Quzqo decided that they were holding Gladiatorial Games where cute little grey Arabians are forced to fight to the DEATH, and he wanted NONE of it...Oh, we spooked, we spun, we reared, we BUCKED, we spun, we balked, we reared, we jumped straight up, we pranced in place, we did everything we could to avoid approaching the barn area!! I got him to the edge of the parking area and dismounted...why tempt fate...but leading him through the outer aisle of the barn to the back, he was still jumping and spooking and bugging his eyes out, silly boy!

Simplified things by untacking him by the gate to his turnout, once I slipped the bridle off, he TORE off up the hill to rejoin his buddies on the far side of the pasture...tail ramrod straight up, cantering the whole way until he was a white dot on the horizon! What a maroon!!

Didn't hang around for the auction, it was the same bulk tack dealer they had in April, and they had the exact same stuff (which I'd already bought in April, LOL)...need to save my pennies anyway.

Even though it's supposed to rain tomorrow, I might just take him out onto a halfway "real" trail ride...I guess as long as no Mutton Busting is going on, he'll be all right!