It finally happened
It was a sunny, cool day, the perfect day for battle. The horse and rider eyed each other: the horse, Ms. Glori, is pissy because her stablemate, Reiny, is eating hay while she is getting tacked up to be ridden. The rider, Heather, is quite eager to try out the used Dressage saddle that she is thinking about buying. She notices the gleam in Ms. Glori's eyes, yet chooses to ignore it because she only has a few days to try out the saddle before taking it back.
Heather, knowing that she needs to work Ms. Glori up to a sweat so that she can see the sweat pattern under the saddle to see how well it fits, makes Ms. Glori walk, corto, and canter around the front yard. Ms. Glori, getting more and more annoyed that each time she goes around the yard, she sees Reiny eating HER portion of the hay that was put out, decides to do some small bucks to test Heather to see how committed Heather is to this workout. Heather, knowing that today was going to be a battle, gives Ms. Glori more leg and continues to make her work. Heather asks Ms. Glori for the canter, and the battle begins!
Now, one must understand that Heather is trying out a new saddle. This is a leather saddle, which is unlike her synthetic saddle. Riding in a synthetic saddle is like riding on velcro: you don't really go anywhere unless the horse does a really bad spin or throw. The leather saddle, if you aren't balanced well, can make you feel like you are sitting on a slip and slide that's greased up with baby oil... hey wait, that has some interesting possibilities! Umm... I digress.
Anyway, Ms. Glori is putting on a show. She's not doing anything too bad, but she is protesting quite a bit and is saying she has had ENOUGH. On that thought, she does a buck and a turn at the same time, and off goes Heather. Ms. Glori suddenly realizes that something is very wrong: Heather is on the ground and she is NOT happy. Ms. Glori's eyes get very large and she stands there looking at Heather on the ground as if to say, "what are you doing down there?!"
Heather, with much cursing, gets back on Ms. Glori where they have a little spinning match to see who is in charge. Heather proceeds to make Ms. Glori work for another 15 minutes, making her walk, corto, and canter. This time, when asked to canter, Ms. Glori goes quite nicely. It looks like Heather won this round!
Isn't it creepy when someone writes in the third person? I couldn't help it, it just sounded like something that needed to be said like a sports commentator. I'm ok, for the most part. I wrenched my thumb and I'm pretty sure that my hip is going to have a wonderful bruise on it tomorrow and I'll definitely be sore. Thank goodness I was wearing my helmet when I went off... the ground is pretty hard out there and there isn't any grass to cushion me.
The look on Ms Glori's face was priceless though... her eyes were so wide and she didn't walk away from me. She just stopped and looked at me on the ground like she couldn't figure out why I was there! After I untacked her, she kept watching me and finally came up to me for a scratch and a hug. I think she was trying to say she was sorry. (Gotta love putting human emotions on animals, eh?)
All in all, it was an interesting experience. I've heard it said that if you ride, you will fall off horses at least 3 times in your life, and so far, I've gone off twice. Thank God I have small horses so it isn't that far to fall!
Oh, and I won't be getting the saddle. It doesn't fit my horse well enough, so the search continues!
Posted by Shadoe at December 30, 2001 04:20 PM
