Marehaven Farm
Longmont, CO
Who knew there were alligators in Colorado?
February 16 / 2008 06:20 PM Filed in: Kelton
I took Kelton over to
Pella this afternoon for our first solo ride of 2008.
It's been a while since she's been out on her
own, and when we arrived there were some other horses
being tacked up, so I moved quickly so that we could
be the first to head out. I wasn't sure how
she'd react to either being left by the other horses
or leaving them behind, and I figured leaving them
behind was the better bet. So I got on and she
motored right on out in her super fast walk and
didn't look back once at the other horses. But
she walked so fast that we did a figure-eight around
both ponds on the east side in about 20 minutes!
We crossed the road and
started on the ponds on the west side, where
everything continued to go well until we came upon a
large tree that had been cut down and chopped into
lots of thick, long logs. The logs were stacked
on both sides of the trail, so maybe that was part of
the problem, but a few of them also looked a lot like
alligators, although how Kelton would know what an
alligator looks like is beyond me! As far as I
know she's spent her whole life in Colorado.
At first she wanted to turn around and go the other way, but I asked her to face the logs and think it over. Her head was straight up in the air and she was trembling slightly, but every few minutes she took a tentative step towards the logs and snorted at them. I let her decide when to step forward and when to stop, and after a while she finally decided she could walk quickly through "alligator alley" without being eaten. She felt pretty "coiled up" with energy, in a way that would've made me get off almost any other horse, but she remained pretty attentive to my requests despite her concern, so I never got nervous.
I know that accidents can still happen, but I don't think I've ever trusted a horse as much as I trust Kelton (well, maybe Jigsaw). What a good girl! Even if she can't do "correct" dressage because of her lameness issue, I'm thrilled she can still go on trail rides, and that we can go out on our own when we want a little one-on-one time with our thoughts.
At first she wanted to turn around and go the other way, but I asked her to face the logs and think it over. Her head was straight up in the air and she was trembling slightly, but every few minutes she took a tentative step towards the logs and snorted at them. I let her decide when to step forward and when to stop, and after a while she finally decided she could walk quickly through "alligator alley" without being eaten. She felt pretty "coiled up" with energy, in a way that would've made me get off almost any other horse, but she remained pretty attentive to my requests despite her concern, so I never got nervous.
I know that accidents can still happen, but I don't think I've ever trusted a horse as much as I trust Kelton (well, maybe Jigsaw). What a good girl! Even if she can't do "correct" dressage because of her lameness issue, I'm thrilled she can still go on trail rides, and that we can go out on our own when we want a little one-on-one time with our thoughts.
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