Today my mom came to the barn and put my saddle on me so I knew she was going to ride me. I was happy. Last time she rode me, she let me canter and it was really fun. So today we went into the same arena we'd cantered in and I got excited because I wanted to run again.
It's the arena near my barn. I should tell you about the arenas because it can be so confusing. Mom calls them all kinds of things - arenas or turnouts or round pens - and she has names for them but I call them different names because hers don't make sense. Like the one we rode in today. She calls it the dressage arena. I don't know why. I don't even know what that means. It's a big, flat arena and it doesn't have a fence around it. I like that because it makes it feel even bigger. Plus it has nice soft dirt that's good to roll in. I call it the Flat Arena.
Then there's the one she calls the Round Pen. I call it that too. I didn't know why it was called that for a long time but Sparky told me it's because it has a round shape. I said, "What's a round shape?" and he told me it's like a really fat pony's barrel. Like his friend Apollo. So that made more sense. It is kind of shaped like that.
There's that arena Indian and I played in the other day that mom calls the Jump Arena. I call it the Little Fence Arena because it's full of all those little fences that we run around. And there's an arena up near where I used have a stall that's called the Gremlin Arena. Even my mom calls it that. It's scary. There are always things rustling around in the bushes.
Down by the hay barn, there's another arena that mom calls the Pony Arena. I don't know why. They don't keep ponies in there but it's a good enough name so I call it that too. And near that is another arena with no fence around it. We don't ride there much but Mom lets me roll in it sometimes and it's so nice to roll in! It's a lot like that other arena with the roof on it - it has that same kind of stick sort of dirt that feels so good on your back. I call the one with the roof the Rolling Arena and the other one is the Little Rolling Arena.
Lots of times there are horses in the Little Rolling Arena going around and around on lunge lines. They have funny kinds of saddles on their backs with handles and things on them and bunches of little kids run at them and jump on them and stand up on them and do flips and all kinds of strange stuff. Sometimes two or even three kids jump up on a horse and they all stand up or jump around. I wouldn't let anyone do that on me. I think it looks scary.
But today we went into the Flat Arena. Like I said, I figured we were going to run again and I was happy about that because I really felt like it. It was a nice day and the wind was blowing a little and it wasn't as hot as it's been lately. And the flies weren't bothering me so much. All that made me feel pretty frisky so I got all bunched up and ready to go.
But Mom made me walk and walk. And then she asked me to trot. I don't like to trot. Trotting is stupid. I'd rather run. So I put my ears back and went sideways. I was mad! I never get to do what I want to do! Mom just asked me to trot again and she hit me with that stick thing she carries and made me do it. I didn't like it one bit and I and didn't really trot very nicely and then I tried to run anyway because I thought if I did, she might call me a Good Girl and let me do it some more.
But she didn't. She made me trot again! It was stupid. So I got even madder and I tried not to trot and I tried to run some more but she just kept making me do stuff I didn't want to do. And then when I kept being bad, she got off me and took me to the Round Pen where she made me trot a lot and she kept making me trot until I got sick of it and just did what she said to do.
What was strange was that as soon as I started doing what she told me to do, she called me a Good Girl and let me canter! People are silly sometimes. If she'd just let me canter in the first place, we wouldn't have had to do all that stupid trotting stuff.
I felt a lot better though and everything would have been nice but something awful happened! When we got back to my stall, I saw that the guys had brought my hay and it was waiting for me. I got excited. I wanted to eat my hay really, really bad and I forgot to hold still while Mom took my saddle off and I stepped on some things and one of them was her foot. So she got mad at me again and she made me stand still and when she brought me in the stall, she made me wait to eat my hay until she told me I could. It was awful! I had to stand there and look at it and she had that stick of hers and told me "No, Bella!" and I had to wait and stuff. It was really, really hard.
She finally let me eat it though and she told me I was a Good Girl and then she put all my stuff away and even gave me some cookies. So it was okay, I guess. But it's hard to figure out what people want sometimes. Horses make a lot more sense.
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