Hoofin' It

As teens, that's what we used to say if we were grounded by our parents from car privileges and had to rely on more organic means of transportation, i.e., our own two feet.

I owed Kris a visit, so I made the trek to beautiful Celina, Texas. Kris and Shane recently moved to their neighborhood, which is an interesting place. It's like where I live only the lots are twice as big (10 acres) and it has less trees. Her neighborhood has more horses than mine; most of the properties around ours are heavily wooded.

Kris has Wynnie, a very frail old Arabian mare; Nakai (don't know if I spelled that right), a beautiful, stocky, black-n-green mustang; Cheyenne, an opinionated chestnut mare (QH?), and Voodoo, a gorgeous, splashy Saddlebred gelding. Life has gotten in the way of Kris's spending as much time with her horses as she may have otherwise chosen, so her two rideable ponies — Cheyenne and Voodoo — are not quite ready for prime time. She had not yet introduced them to the neighborhood, so we went walkabout, ponies in tow. Kris led the unpredictable Voodoo, while I took the supposedly easier Cheyenne. Yeah, not so much.

Kris & Voodoo

Me & Cheyenne

We passed horses, llamas, territorial charging, braying donkeys, and Cheyenne was a trooper. Then we went past a place that had a foal, and mama brought baby down to the fence. Mama was a bit protective: "Look at my foal, covet my foal, but I'll kill you if you make a move toward my foal." We moved to the other side of the road to be on the safe side.

Suddenly, Cheyenne started pacing the length of the lead rope (and it was a short lead rope), then swinging back in the other direction, snorting. I saw this little bitty snotty pony no bigger than a Rottweiler pawing and snorting at the fence across the road where the mama and baby were. This wouldn't have been a big deal except that every time Cheyenne went by me, she swung her butt that much closer to me, pushing me into the fence — my fault for letting her get me in that position. I finally had to let go of the rope and hope for the best. Why that little shit got Cheyenne's dander up is beyond me. Kris said she has seen minis before. She trotted off toward home, but kept stepping on the lead rope, halting herself, and finally, I was able to walk up to her and grab her again. Through it all, Voodoo, who has a reputation for being hyper, was fine.

As you can see, Voodoo is a beautiful boy. I actually was able to get him going in a circle on the lead rope: a first for me (except for Jaz). He is the first Saddlebred I've ever met, so I was a bit unsettled by his high headset. I kept waiting for him to drop his head and relax. It was only after returning home and doing some research that I learned they are "born proud". Okay then.

I wouldn't say this if Kris herself hadn't said it first, but Voodoo is not the brightest crayon in the box. I got the impression that you could show him something one day, and the next he might be a clean slate again. His eyes have this look like la-la-la. His saving grace (besides the fact that he is drop-dead gorgeous) is that he is willing to please. I enjoyed playing with him.

Heather needs to meet Nakai. That is her kind of horse. He looks like a squooshed Friesian and has lots of 'tude. Beautiful.

Kris and Shane took me to brunch at this great lil greasy spoon in downtown Celina where we had a delicious meal, including fried green tomatoes, good conversation, and lots of laughs.

It doesn't get much better than that.