Strange day

I saw the weirdest thing today. I was out in my paddock and some people were riding horses in the Flat Arena. I can see that arena pretty well from my paddock. There are some bushes that block the view a little bit but i can see a lot. So I was watching them just to pass the time.

The people had dragged a bunch of wooden things out to the middle of the arena and set them up in a line. They were kind of like the little fences in the Little Fence arena but the posts weren't as big. These didn't really have posts at all. Just short little criss-cross pieces on each end of a round pole. The pole itself wasn't up off the ground very far - it seemed like an awful silly fence to me. There was just the one piece, so a horse could go right around it, and it was only about as tall as the top of my ankle so any self-respecting horse could just step over it. Of course, us horses know we're not supposed to get out of our fences but we do anyway. Sometimes we just can't help it.

Like I said though, these were silly fences. But it got even sillier because the people riding the horses were making them go right toward them! At a trot even. Those horses trotted right up to the first little fence and trotted right over it! Then they trotted over the second one and the third. It made me feel a little funny to watch because it seemed like such a strange thing to do. Kia wasn't around - she was off with her mom again - or I would have asked her about it. I did ask Mickey but he just grabbed onto a piece of wood and started sucking on it so I knew I wasn't going to get anything out of him.

After a while, the horses started cantering and then they cantered over those little fences! They didn't just canter though - they jumped over them. I have to say, it looked like a lot of fun. Still, it seemed strange that people would want their horses to jump over fences. I always thought it was a rule to stay inside them. I guess I have a lot to learn.

When my mom got there, she cleaned my stall as usual then got out my lungeing stuff. I was feeling really frisky today. For the past two mornings, I've gotten alfalfa instead of grass hay. I heard Razuli's dad telling my mom that the guys were out of grass hay. That means that I've gotten alfalfa for breakfast, alfalfa for a hay snack and alfalfa for dinner. That's a lot of alfalfa. Mom gave me a really small hay snack today, probably because she didn't want me to have quite so much. Alfalfa makes me pretty energetic.

Because of all that, I was awfully rowdy lungeing again today. I'll be glad when we can ride again. I wasn't bad but I sure did feel like running around and kicking up my heels. Mom let me, but only as long as I went the direction she wanted and at the pace she asked for. That seemed fair. I had a good workout and worked up a good sweat. Then she had me walk on the lunge line and gradually moved me closer to one of the little fences that was still in the arena. This one was very short, shorter than the others. It was really just a pole lying on the ground only with little criss-cross posts on each side. I was walking along on the lunge line and all of a sudden, there it was in front of me. Mom had led me across it a few times before we started lungeing so I knew I could cross it but it did take me a little by surprise. I stopped and sniffed it and then she asked me to walk on so I did.

I've walked over poles before when she rode me but I've never lunged over them so that was different. Actually, I've even trotted over them under saddle but not for a while. It ended up being kind of fun. I like to do things that are different. She didn't have me do it too many times. I was sweaty and ready for my wash. But I wouldn't mind doing some more of that. Maybe someday I'll be able to jump over little fences.