Two Fancy stories from the wonderful Gaited Horse clinic with Tony and Jenny Vaught
1. Fancy has been to this arena several times , the last as recently as two days ago. That was a good day. I had to persuade her to move up into the flat foot walk and fox trot. Was she tired?
Today there were about 12-15 equines in the arena. When I got on her, she got into a high energy mode. Twenty minutes of figure eights and small circles did not slow down her super go. She seemed to slightly calm down and then she whinnied at something. She stoked back up again into forward accelerating energy. Jenny asked me how I was doing. I told her, I was thinking about getting off. Jenny said, Tony can ride her. Tony loves Fancy. Fancy got to go fast, stop fast and turn. It took about ten Tony minutes of fast to get her calm.
After lunch Fancy was ready for me to ride. Let’s say Fancy and I had periods of arguing. We did good at the end of the day in transitions. I found out what might have made Fancy into an excited horse all day. She met her first mule! Roscoe is a very very tall mule with wondrous mule ears. He gives off an feeling of calmness and acceptance. Near the end of the day, Roscoe was resting in the middle of the arena near where I stopped Fancy to let her rest. Fancy was practically quivering in excitement to be near Roscoe. She tried and tried to to walk up to his head. Her ears were forward and her neck was arched. Fancy is in love with Rosco! She wanted to elope with Rosco. Fancy has never ever had ears forward near another horse. She pins her ears and snarls when other horses get close to her. Roscoe is her love. Roscoe might have played a part in her accelerated arena performance today! Lordy!
2. Fancy and I trailered home. We stopped after driving through the gate. The other two horses were on the far side of the pasture where I stopped to shut the gate. We have had torrential rain recently. The snow melt from the horrid winter helped make our road under water. Where I stop to shut gate is in a pool of standing water. I have to walk through this wet mud pool hell a couple times a day to open and shut the gate.
The gate is shut. I open the trailer door to let Fancy out. She looks down at the ground and sees a bottomless lake. (Horses lack our human depth perception.). If she gets out, she will drown. “Oh, sez my brain.” I wait. Fancy wants out. She is making up her mind. She tries to jump the puddle from the trailer. Nope, she lands in the puddle. She leaps out of the puddle. I pet her and we walk toward the pasture gate. Oh, the road runoff has created a small stream in the yard. I remember that she is not a water crossing trail horse yet. She leaps across the tiny stream. We make it to the pasture gate. There is about a three foot space and then another water runoff stream. I barely manage to get her body inside the gate. She has to turn sideways for me to reach her halter. I manage to get the halter off. She walks across the stream! Yay!
Those are your two Fancy stories today!
