Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Riding Orlando




I have done something today that I've never done before and that no one else in the whole world has done. I sat on my nearly three year old gelding, Orlando. This is such an amazing thing to me, that I am foregoing the pleasure of going to bed, so that I can mark the occasion on my blog. I've owned Orlando's mother, Sundance, featured in all her hair, since July 2004. Shortly after purchasing her, I was struck by the suspicion that she was pregnant. A quick trip to the vet's office confirmed that there was a horse the size of a football inside her. When I asked the vet if it was a boy or girl, he said yes. It had been a long journey, waiting for that baby, and the nights I wandered back to the barn to see if the colt had been born yet were momentous (I could have walked in on a horse theft, but Bob beat me to it, ask me about that story!) and very drawn out. We started waiting in March, and waited and waited and waited. Then, over Memorial Day weekend, I put in much hard manual labor at the barn and gratefully drove home, aching and hot. The next morning, I was awakened by a phone call from Bob, my friend at the barn, asking me if I'd like to see my new cremello filly! Sundance was very tricky and waited until I was too exhausted to be vigilant. And it wasn't a filly, but a colt, thank heavens, I have too many mares. So here it is, nearly three years from that day and I put a saddle on my colt, and after a time in the arena, I laid over his back. He was far more concerned with the other horses in the arena, so I retired to one of our runs and again laid myself over his back. Because that was so uninteresting to him, (not me, I assure you) I impulsively decided to put my leg all the way over and actually sit astride. I did that several times and even urged him to take a few steps. So there you have it, no one else in the whole wide world has sat on my colt, except for me, no one else has ever trained him, just me. And he hardly blinked an eye.

1 comment:

Pampered Princess said...

you are the horse whisperer.