Bute Friday night, Saturday morning & evening, and Sunday morning. He wandered around the pasture all weekend, allowing me to drug him without a halter, and scratch all over without fuss or fight. Seemed overall just sad that I'd come out to him with nothing in-hand, except the occasional paste of drugs. No halter, no cookies, no obvious aim to "catch" him for work. He watched from the front of the pasture yesterday while Romeo and I worked, and it appeared he was pouting, sad he didn't get "chosen" for the day's ride. Last night, after riding with cowboy-Les, I intended to give him another dose of bute, and he galloped off from me, whizzed around the front of his pasture, trotting happily all around, almost to say, "Mom, I'm fine. Can we get back to work now?"
Romeo eased the lonely yesterday with a barefoot romp in the round pen. He warm-up free lunged like a genius, rather than the nutty goofball I had previously. After about 15 minutes, I concluded he didn't have any goofy in him, tightened a bareback pad on him, put on his french link bridle, and hopped on.. He carried me through a nice loose rein walk, loose rein trot & jog, and stopped easily every time. In warmup I did a little "neck to leg rein", hoping to get him at a neck rein walk & trot one of these days. He was peaceful, much like he used to be, before the hunter series & shoes. Maybe the saddle girth irked him, maybe the shoes hurt, maybe the arthritis is just too much for jumping & strenous training, who knows. Nevertheless, I had my Old Man back Sunday, and he knew I appreciated it.
Spent the evening with Cowboy Les & his Roping crew of horses. I enjoyed some romping rounds loping on Amigo, him enduring me learning to stick my feet out in front of me, and focus solely on balance, without white knuckles bracing on the saddle horn. For grins & giggles, I got a walk & trot on Blue, a friend of his' horse. o O ( SHhhh.. Blue.. don't tell your PaPa I rode you.. it's our little secret.. besides, he isn't an www-user, nor a blog-reader ... shhhh ) O o We enjoyed about an hour & half's ride, then bumbled on back to Les' house, where I walked & trotted on his mare, Sugar. All three are AQHA, but incredibly different to ride. Each has their own bad habit, Amigo only lopes on one lead & cuts the arena small, turning sharply on the short sides. Blue acts insensitive, then over-reacts to leg pressure at what seems no apparent reason or timing. Sugar swishes her tail in anger anytime inside leg pressure is applied, obviously annoyed that the rider is confident enough to make her move out. Perhaps after Les puts some sweat in her saddle pad on an arena day-out, I'll have confidence to lope her. She was probably the softest of the bunch, giving to rein pressure, cooperating with leg cues, stopping on a request. It was an awesome distraction to missing the show.
None are as good as my boy Chewie, but all were better than sitting at home moping around upset about missing the event.
News reports say TS Dolly is bouncing around in the Gulf. Allright you stupid storm... Bring me rain, fine. Bring me bad rain & bad wind, I'm going to be a GROUCH. Anybody gotta wild, strong box fan I can borrow? We'll blow that stupid thing far south of us, so we'll just get a toucha rain from it. Don't want mud.. mud leads to abscesses.. abcesses lead to a grouchy momma, and a sick horse, and huge vet bills... no strong weather, puh-leeze...
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