Today was a really good day for me! I thought it might be a bad one because no one came to see me by the time I got my alfalfa. Still, sometimes my mom does come later in the evening when it's hot and it was hot today. It's nicer in the evening. The air is cooler and there aren't so many people and horses around and it smells good. Sometimes the coyotes are howling and that's a pretty sound.
Sure enough, she and Sparky's mom came when it was cooling off and nice out. I was happy to see them both and Mom got me out and got a hay snack ready for me while Sparky's mom went and got him. She brought him over to my stall and we shared a hay snack together the way we do sometimes. I didn't get mad or anything today. I usually don't anymore. The only reason I did one time is because my mom wasn't here and I was kind of anxious. Spark understands, though. He is my best friend, after all.
We had a nice hay snack and then my mom gave me a quick grooming and started putting my saddle on! I was happy about that. It seems like ages since she's ridden me and I figured we'd go with Spark and his mom which is even better. I was a Good Girl while she got me ready and didn't fuss at all. And when she led me to the place where she gets on, I walked nicely and not too fast so she could keep up in that bandage she wears.
I ought to tell you about how people get on horses because you might not know. Horses are pretty tall and I'm one of the taller ones. So it's hard for people to reach their legs all the way up to the stirrups. My mom can do it from the ground - she has before - but she doesn't much like to. For one thing, it pulls on the saddle a lot and she doesn't like doing that to my back. So most people at the farm use a piece of a tree to stand on which helps them get on a lot easier. Mom calls it a mounting block but it's just a big old flat tree stump.
Normally when we got to it, she leads me next to it and gets on from my left side. But today she led me the other way and Sparky's mom held onto me while Mom tried to get on from the other side. I guess that's because she has that big bandage on her left foot and it doesn't fit in a stirrup. It feels funny when she gets on from the other side but I don't mind. Today though, my saddle slipped the first time she tried so she had to push it back on and then tighten it. Then she tried again and got on okay. My saddle felt a little funny because it had been twisted just a little but it didn't hurt or anything and I was happy to have my mom riding me. Besides, I had to be careful because she's not sound.
I was really, really careful. I didn't jig, or toss my head, or try to twirl or anything. I just walked nicely. I didn't even drift around too much. Sparky's mom rode him without a saddle - we call that bareback - and we rode a poop loop together. It was nice. At first it felt funny where my mom's big bandage hit my side, and since she couldn't put that foot in the stirrup, it just hung loose and banged against me a little bit. It was okay though. After a while, she figured out how to put her leg on me so that she could tell me what to do a little better and we got on very well.
It was a nice ride. I like riding with Sparky. He just walks along nicely and he doesn't walk slow like some horses do - he steps right out. I walk pretty fast usually, unless I'm stopping to look around, and it's good to ride with a horse that's not poking along. Lots of times I end up behind him because he goes so nicely. He's a Good Boy.
We only went around one time. I could tell it was tiring for my mom to ride with only one stirrup and with that big heavy bandage hanging there. But she was happy to be on me - I could tell that too. I was happy to have her there. That's what horses do, you know. We like to do things with our people and when they're happy with us, it makes us happy too. When we got back to the barn, she rode me over to the mounting block tree thing again and got off so she was stepping on it instead of going all the way down to the ground. That was smart. She might have hurt herself if she'd gotten off the normal way.
She gave me a little more hay and a cookie and my bucket dinner and I had a nice new bag of shavings in my bed so it was a good day all around. I'm glad my mom can still ride me. I'd be pretty sad if she couldn't.
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