horses – Page 4 – Almost Farmgirl

Cinco. My super dependable, one time lesson horse, who lost his mind just a little.

You remember when I posted about wanting to go for a trail ride on my super dependable gelding but then deciding not to because I couldn’t find a helmet?

Just so you all know, it was one of the best decisions I’ve made all year.

On Saturday I decided to saddle up and go. I had my helmet. I had my super dependable, well-trained horse…

I mean, I had my helmet.

I really just wanted a simple stroll down the lane. All of my horses have had time off this winter. (Without an improved riding area, like an arena, we really can’t make use of them during the “icy” season…) I didn’t have huge expectations. I had no intention of asking for much.

But Bloody Hell…

Just about from the second I settled into the saddle, Cinco was a different horse. No longer my sweet tempered gelding with training out of his ears, Cinco transformed into a hell beast, destined to be ridden by one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Bucking, crow hopping, pining his ears, charging down the lane, and generally doing everything in his power to throw me off, Cinco was basically a different animal. A crazily herd bound animal.

He cried for Morana. She cried for him. He tried to charge back to their pasture, fighting me every step of the way. (Two thoughts here: It occurs to me that in horse world, that was probably the equivalent of a very romantic gesture. Also, my 6 year old Warmblood is in love with a 16 year old Arabian cross…If she were a person, I’d say she has major daddy issues.)

I’m not a horse trainer by any means, but I’m a decent rider, and this wasn’t my first rodeo. (Side note, just realized I’ve been at this horse nonsense for almost twenty years. Yikes.) If I have any one particularly strong point, I have a very good natural seat. Cinco was frustrated to realize that he couldn’t throw me. He tried his damnedest. For forty minutes or so, I fought almost every step he tried to make. He couldn’t get his way. (I wasn’t coming off.) I couldn’t get my way. (He wasn’t going to do anything I asked without a fight.) We had reached an impasse.

In the back of my mind, I knew that if I could keep the fight up for another hour or so, he would eventually give in, but I was alone on the ranch, and it was getting dark. Sometimes, you have to weigh cost against benefits. I could win…but I could also stand to hurt myself. I kept going until we reached a begrudged point of agreement…and I dismounted.

Here’s what Cinco doesn’t know yet: One, I’m going to call in one of our trainer friends. (Trainers are like owners but with Mafia connections. Ask any horse.) Two: He’s going to be moving away from Morana as soon as we have a few stalls set up. From here on, my horse herds are going to rotate. He and Morana are about to have a long distance relationship….

Things really would have been much easier for him if he had walked down the freaking lane…

Oh – Moral of the story: Always wear a helmet.

Side note: Soon as we got back in the pasture, he wanted loving and attention…and maybe apples. I love him dearly, but just then? No way Jose…

Friday started with Jeremiah and I filing our taxes, then going to get ice cream (you know, to drown our sorrows…)

We made it out to the ranch later, after I took a nap (because sometimes you just need to hit reset on the day).

Days like Friday make every miserable, sub-zero winter day hauling water and hay in carharts totally worth it. I mean, not to go all country western song on ya’ll, but we’re talking sunny and seventy-five.

Jeremiah decided that he wanted to build our new property sign. With wood that had been discarded in the hay barn (long before it became our horse barn) and a post hole digger that he bought off of craigslist several years ago (from someone who bought it to prospect for gold in his backyard in central Illinois…not even kidding), he and I drove to the property’s front entrance.

I helped with the post holes, all the while thinking of advice my grandmother had given me when she realized I was marrying a farm boy: “Don’t do anything on the farm once that you don’t want to do for the rest of your life.” (She had married a farmer herself; that gem of advice had come from my grandfather’s aunt.) When I mentioned the advice to Jeremiah, he agreed that she was probably right, and then he reminded me that we would need to dig hundreds of post holes across the property over the next few years. I’m sunk.

Anyway, after that I wandered off and let him get to building his sign. I had a wild hare to pull one of the horses out of the pasture and go for a trail ride.

Meet Cinco.

Cinco is a 15…maybe 16… year old Missouri Foxtrotter, Arabian Cross. He spent years as a lesson horse, is trained to do about anything I could ever think to ask of him, and is my go-to when I have an idea to do something like, I don’t know, ride one of my horses on a trail after they’ve had months off. He came to us last October from a friend of my husband’s. I honestly could not ask for a sweeter, better horse than Cinco. I would have a pasture full of him if I could.

However, even with a horse as wonderful as Cinco, I will not ride any of my horses out of the pasture without a helmet. And yesterday, I couldn’t find one. (Brief PSA: Riding without a helmet is a stupid way to get dead. Horses are sentient creatures with a mind of their own, even on the most dependable horse, unexpected things happen. End PSA.)

I looked in the horse barn. I looked in the tack room three times. I looked in my husband’s truck while he was building his sign. I even walked down to the guest house and looked in there…

Turns out, it was at my house across the river in the living room…where it’s useful.

Anyway, no ride on Friday. Instead I settled on grabbing a halter and taking him for a walk. We went up the lane, back down the lane, and then up the lane and back again and again until he decided to stop yelling at his girlfriend. (My mare, Morana. The two are ridiculously herd bound at this point. More on that later.)

We checked on the status of the sign a few times (it was coming along nicely). Then, he was good and calm, I let him stand by the fence and graze a bit.

Being away from Morana isn't as bad when there is grass involved... — Being away from Morana isn’t as bad when there is grass involved…

When I put Cinco back, Morana looked like she had just been through an endurance ride. She had apparently been running the fence line the entire time he had been gone.

Also, Jeremiah had finished building his sign.

A little like Washington Crossing the Delaware, except with a sign.

Someone will eventually paint the words “Eagle Ridge” across this. I also want to add a few grazing horses and llamas (or maybe alpacas) to the bottom. Of course, since my primary skill with paint involves a solid color and baseboards…maybe we will have to call someone else out.