Wednesday, November 9, 2011

A Love Story Chapter 3 ( Tues. With Texas)

When I decided to start this project I thought it was going to be a breeze, as it turns out I am really having trouble going from thought to word. If I had you in front of me I could talk all day about this story but I am trying to span three decades and I am discovering I am not that great a writer so I am going to jump ahead a bit in the hopes that I can find my voice. As it turned out.

Texas is the name of the horse I had developed such an interest in. It turns out he wasn't all that frail just young. D had taken that Arab mare and her foal and traded them for Tex.....I kinda missed that little gaffer....not for long though because I became quite busy. Tex turned out to be a Three yr old unbroke gelding that required a fair bit of my time. ( I had already told S and D that I wanted this horse) As Spring started turning to Summer I divided my time between taking out rides and training this young horse. This is where I have to tell you that yes I had been around horses pretty much all my life.......at this point my life was still fairly young, I think I had just turned 23, I had no formal training when it came to horses but I was going to take whatever I thought I knew and pass it on to my young charge.Tex was a pretty quick learner not to say we didn't have some trouble......on this one occasion I had saddled Tex up ...pretty early in the morning I was hoping to get some time on him before I had to take out rides. On this day he decided to act like he knew nothing and it was his first time under saddle....he made it very clear that he was having nothing to do with a training session on this day.....he would not go forward....he would not take a step in any direction.....it got to be very frustrating....it was starting to warm up people strated drifting in ....there was lots of work that needed doing but I couldn't just get off and leave it at that....that is not how I did things. So I tried everything I knew to get that horse to move, he could tell that I had reached my breaking point.....instead of trying to do as asked he did the opposite ...he started backing up he backed all over the yard into horses over a few people....I have to say I was almost reduced to tears. The final straw was when Tex backed up right under the hitching rail until the saddle seat would allow him to go no further....that was it he wouldn't budge he planted all four legs and stood like a statue. Now what, I was at a total loss nothing left in my arsenal which was pretty bare to begin with. I stepped down and tried to lead him out....nothing, so I did what any embarrassed ....humiliated.........person would do I went and got D. This guy can ride anything, he gets on and horses fall all over themselves to please him, he is well was ....we're all kinda old now an accomplished bronc rider if anybody was going to make this horse work it would be him. With some help we coaxed Tex out from under the H'n rail, then D hopped on.....nothing....he asked kindly nothing...no try nothing.....D got a little stonger with the ask ....nothing then he gave him a little spur action....well something happened, I have never seen anything quite like it before or since, that horse started to (this is really hard to describe)swing his left shoulder out (rather violently) then his right he kept doing that and added a bit of speed ( he kinda swung himself out from under D) and the next thing ya know D was on the ground. Tex just stood there looking at him. D got up and he was not happy.....ego thing don't ya know....by then we had a little audience gathered. Anyhow D grabbed the reins stepped back up got himself settled and asked the horse to move ahead, it wasn't 2 seconds before D was on the ground again, this time he still had the reins in his hand. He got up walked over to me and said get this F#%##%% horse out of my sight. So twice he's got the guy on the ground and never bucked once. Lets just say he hadn't endeared himself to D......good thing for me. Oh and by the way still don't know what got into that horses head but I got back on and he was a doll, did everything I asked, no fuss no refusal you would think he was all trained and ready for the big time.

Computer glitch no computer on Tuesday....better late than never. Have a nice day.

4 comments:

Sherry Sikstrom said...

I he an appy??LOL kidding
Funny what they get in thier heads at times (or not)
I worked with one for a while , rough start, then working weel, went out the next day and it was all brand new information!!! went like that for about 5 days befroe the info seemed to stick

Crystal said...

Funny how they seem to have a brain fart one day and act like nothing happened the next. I can agree how very frusterating that would be.

Shirley said...

The image of him stuck under the hitching rail cracked me up!
One thing about Tex, he didn't do things by half measures.

Linda said...

Ditto what Crystal said;))

The Mares

The Girls That Share My Life

Jazz

Jazz

Moxie

Moxie

Jade

Jade

Mattie

Mattie