Horsing Around

I have been getting in a little more horseback riding lately. Last week I went out with German (Herman) to round up some horses and move them to a different pasture. I was feeling pretty confident after the previous horse ride with Chocolate. That all changed when I saw the horse I was going to ride…Buena Pinta (well dressed). Buena Pinta had not been ridden yet this year…not a good sign.

Anyways, I got her saddled up and brought her to the corral. German got on here first to make sure all was well….it wasn´t. As soon as he got on, the horse started backing up really fast and actually fell down throwing German off into the fence. At this point I´m thinging “This is the horse I have to ride!? No way” German gave Buena some Choice words of encouragement and got back on. She didn’t fall this time, but still kind of bucked around a bit. He rode her around the corral and all seemed ok for the time. He got off and looked over to me and said “OK, your turn.” As you can imagine, I was pretty unsure about this whole thing. I was on the verge of saying “no way, not this horse,” but thought better of it. I walked over, trying to look confident and slowly got on the horse. She started to the backwards-falling over stunt again, but luckily she didn’t go through with it.

The ride turned out to be fine with no more craziness. Buena Pinta and I actually got along pretty well. I like using a car analogy to describe the horses. Chocolate was is the Caprice Classic of the horse world…slow moving, not very responsive. Buena Pinta was more like a Ferrari…wanting to go faster and faster and very responsive. The slightest movement on the reigns resulted in a drastic move to the left or right.