Adventures With Horses
Jess's Adventures
Jess's Adventures
Jess, the 19 year old, now greening other people's horses with thirty days' worth of rough riding once they've mastered the basics, was brought a 15 hand three year old who had a "spook" problem, even on the ground.
Ground work was proceeding rather slowly, as the horse needed to be desensitized to every little thing. Finally, after carpeting his stall in empty feed sacks, the gelding got the idea. With a bit of help, he learned to walk through a doorway one step at a time, no bolting, both forward and backward.
Actually riding him was simple. He picked up the cues rapidly, and enjoyed the outings tremendously. Road work was going on right outside the farm lane, so his first down the road ride included passing on the opposite side of the road from a flapping yellow and black tape marking a construction pit.
Shy Guy took to water like a duck and was soon doing the circuit of trails Jess has wound around the creek on the government ground. Even water nearly belly deep was okay by him.
Soon his owner and family were going to go on an outing with Jess aboard their gelding, and them mounted on other green broke horses belonging to the farm. Shy Guy's owner is a pretty novice rider, so she was put on the least challenging, most balanced of the young freshly trained three year olds, Pandemonium Arpeggio. Her sister, who is an intermediate rider, got another three year old, Pandemonium Adagio a horse with a possible endurance future, but good enough quality to show. The girl's father was on the veteran Pandemonium Lucretia, who looked smashing in his new Australian saddle.
Things were going so well that Jess decided to take a new trail he noticed, one he had never been down before. A quick consultation resulted in the decision to proceed instead of return, as the weather was perfect and plenty of daylight remained.
Not too far into the new trail, Shy Guy reverted to his old shying trick when he spooked up two fawns while in the lead. Leaping an impressive amount sideways, but stopping when Jess asked him to, he stood alertly watching the twins bound off.
When the lead horse leaped off the trail, the three behind, who could see NOTHING to shy about, followed the herd behavior instincts that had protected wild horses for generations -- they also bolted. Turning back, Jess saw Missy roll sideways off the green mare she was on, saddle also turning. Her father's Australian saddle went sideways on Lucretia, and he also rolled into tall grass.
Darcie sat Adagio at first, but as she circled back, she unwittingly was headed right over the place where her father was lying in the long grass. Afraid he was going to get stepped on, he popped up, waving both hands above him, which gave the appearance of magically appearing out of the ground to the already hyper alert horse. Darcie came off, landing right on top of her dad.
The three loose horses pelted for home, all three saddles sideways. Ending up in the neighbor's hay field, within site of the home place, they began to graze.
Leading the unfazed Shy Guy, who was the only one who knew there were no monsters in the wilderness, only some quite common deer, Jess readjusted the saddles, and the quartet proceeded uneventfully the rest of the way home, with minor bruises that included their egos.
Next installment: San's Adventures
SUNSET CAPER
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