At the Speed of Maggie

Maggie the new horse is reliable as crap, which is amazing since she's only 5 and we've only had her 10 mos. But she's a worker, she just walks right into anything you point her toward, she's ready to explore. That's why today was surprising.

Today we were heading back through the woods after going through the water, and when you turn her to go back she does turn slightly into a 5 year old horse, with more speed and a yippee attitude. I was ponying Dewey behind us and we were on the sort of bushy woods part of the trail and I don't know if she got poked in the stomach by a stick or if Dewey bumped her too much from behind all I know is one minute she was walking along and the next minute we were rocketing forward at the speed of light. The world, when surprised and on horseback at suddenly high speed, is a carnival ride. Time blurs upwards, and everything feels like it's upside down. I lost Dewey's rope, because we were hurtling forward and all I thought was what's going on, oh crap, Dewey is going to come zooming behind us, I will be in a steeplechase. I also thought hey Maggie has a really smooth canter. I also thought shit how do I stop this thing.

All this happened in about 3 or 4 strides of her running. Then I got her stopped (always a miracle, especially if you're still on top of the horse). And I looked back and there was Dewey just standing in the bushes where his rope dropped. Relaxed. The perfect gentleman.

I don't know why horses have to be idiotic, they just are. I got off Mags and got on Dewey since it was time to switch, riding back home. Maggie was fine and silly the rest of the ride home. She likes to bite at Dewey when we're going down hill so I spent a lot of time trying to hit her in the face when she tried to nip.  But even that is business as usual.

On the way back in I saw Lisa my  trail buddy and we held our arms over our heads in victory at seeing each other on the trail. The universal Life Is So Good on Horses greeting. I also saw our preschool neighbor friends, even though our kids are all more than 10 years past preschool. It's a good way to see the neighborhood, nothing but happiness comes when you ride by on a horse.

I figure I've done about 280 rides on Maggie in 10 mos. She's had about 3 times she's done something idiotic. So she gets to be 5 years old sometimes. Pretty good odds.