They Can't All Be Winners

The horses are becoming downright nonchalant about being trailered to and from the farm. Jaz went to his usual hangout with the junior stallions unless/until someone opted to ride him. Kris was on industrial-strength allergy meds and was in la-la land. She wisely opted not to ride.

How come Jaz gets to play and I gotta work?

Answer: Because you're the one that needs it.

I don't wanna — it's too HOT!

Answer: It sucks to be you, don't it?

A commotion erupted in the junior stallion pen, and I looked over to see O bearing down on Jaz. O is not a junior stallion; he's a full-blown, testosterone dripping 16hh+ Sugarbush stallion, but he has been behaving well enough lately to be run with the little boys. They are in a large L-shaped pen that contains a couple horse trailers, and he must have been behind one of them, flirting with the girls in the pasture. I never saw him. Even if I had, Jaz is a gelding and so submissive, I would have assumed O would have been fine with him. And I'd have been wrong then, too. Jaz escaped being seriously hurt because he's fast enough to outrun O. Heather ran over, opened the gate, and Jaz flew out. She was also kind enough to doctor him for me so I could tend to Pokey, who was still tied to the stocks.

There were lots more nicks, cuts, and scrapes. The above photos were taken much later in the day, after we'd been home and Jaz rolled in the sand. All wounds are superficial, and believe me, I've seen him bashed up a lot worse than this. He is, however, unable to be ridden for awhile because of the location of the big abrasion on his back. And did he play the sympathy card! He banged the feed pan in his stall: "Hey! I'm hurt! Give me grain!"

Jaz wasn't the only casualty. After we were done riding, Poco was tacked down and hosed off, Heather sat on a pile of wood, while we yakked and I hand-grazed Poco. The wood shifted, Heather fell on her butt, and Poco spooked, whipping me around and into the bush grill of their truck. The anthropomorphism police will get me for this, but I swear, whenever he does stupid, chicken-shit things like that (spooking at nothing), he gets the most sheepish expression on his face, as if to say, "Please don't tell anybody I just did that." Anyway, the bruise looks a lot worse than it feels.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: the ride. It was just okay. It was windy and those pesky goats in the round pen got Poco's goat. I rode out a couple good spooks. Although compliant, he never really relaxed like he did last time. I kept us at a walk.

The one time he did put his head down, Heather yelled to pull him up — the stinker really was about to go down on his knees to roll. The good news is, I think I can recognize THAT head drop now: it's straight down (and I can feel his shoulders drop), as opposed to stretched out in front of his body. Maybe next time I'll get to check out the merely-stretching, relaxed head drop.