A Misadventure-free Ride(ish)

I was sure today was going to be one hell of a hot mess. I completely overslept, so I quickly threw on some clothes and jumped into the car. Halfway up the hill, I realized I'd left my cameras and my spare set of reins. I was afraid that didn't bode well for the ride.

When we got to the lodge, Mom told me that Skeeter was on her shit list. Skeeter is super pushy on the ground, which I hate, and it's an ongoing fight with her. I'm thinking that she's so pushy on the ground, because Karma heard me complain that I would never tolerate a pushy horse. You know how a childless adult bitching about misbehaving kids, ends up with feral children and are forced to eat their words? Yeah, it's *exactly* like that.

Ugh. Not a great start and we hadn't even pulled the horses.

Skeets was a rock star while getting all tacked up, though Alloy was being twitchy and a bit of a spaz. He threatened to blow up several times while getting tacked up. At one point, I mentioned that I hoped that oversleeping and forgetting stuff was all of the misadventure we'd have. Then Beel spoke up and said that is was probably his turn for a "misadventure" (read: fall, since Mom and I had each hit the ground). I told him that we don't take turns. I know that's against everything we learned in kindergarten, but when it comes to horse misadventures, we don't take turns!

Mom and I both had passing thoughts of booting Skeeter, but since we were just riding in town, I passed on fighting over the boots. The ride started out better than any we've had this year - even though Alloy was kind of being an idiot during the tacking up phase, as soon as Bill mounted up and started moving his feet, he settled right down.

Because of last week's fiasco, we planned a short, successful ride in town. It was all going well until about half a mile out, when Skeeter just stopped. She just refused to take one more step on the gravely, pokey road. I pointed her to the grassy area along the side of the road and she stepped right up and we moved along nicely until we had to step back down on the road to cross a driveway. She stepped down, took two steps and stopped, which confirmed my suspicion that her feetsies were still tender. I mentally cursed myself for not putting boots on her, then stepped down.

Thanks to my mapmyrun app, I know that when we're riding, we average between 24 and 25 minutes a mile, but I also know that when Copper and I are walking, we average between 19 and 20 minutes a mile. I wasn't going to let her meander along at a 24 minute per mile pace, so I kept her moving along faster than she wanted. She might have gotten out of carrying me, but she wasn't getting out of working. For a mare that is usually very difficult to lead because of her pushiness, I had to do a surprising amount of driving and dragging her along. There's a reason she hasn't graduated from the 15' lead rope to a more manageable length one.

Mom and Bill happily rode along behind us while I dragged Skeeter a long. At one point, after having to drive her to speed her up, I looked back and she had the best eff you and eff this look on her face. I couldn't help but laugh at her. She thought she was going to get to go home once I dismounted, but the joke was on her.

You know the problem with forcing your horse to walk with you at a 19-ish minute mile? You also have to walk at that pace, so maybe the joke was on me. I know exactly how slow my walking pace is, but I figured I was making her move a good bit faster than her riding speed.

Ski Road meets up with Business Hwy 7, which is paved, so I mounted up again there and we rode happily back to the lodge.

We're calling today's ride a huge win. No one came off their horse, and though I walked, I chose to, plus she still had to carry me about half of the ride. Next week, the boots are going back on. I think we'll probably stay in town, just to see how she's doing, but by August we should be back up on the mountain.

You're welcome for the fancy artwork :)