Dante’s Turn

Dante’s Turn

It was time to get Dante down on the trail.  I had been taking Cole out quite a bit once the time changed, but Ellen rides in the morning when I am at work.  She doesn’t want to do this on her own, when it is too cold, when the river is a little too high, if it is windy or if she isn’t feeling confident.  We kept putting it off.  In the meantime, she was working in the arena (and getting bored of it) and riding Dante on the loop in the back of the barn’s property.

Easter Sunday was warm and beautiful.  The river was in good shape, too.  Ellen had ridden Dante 3 days in a row.  I felt it was time.  I’m not sure what she felt, but since I was going to ride him, I took charge.  Ellen would ride Cole Train.

We turned Dante out to play and chased him around.  He ran a bucked and ran and bucked.  He was ready. 

We survived the ride.  There was spooking, stalling out, bursting with excitement, a slip in the river caused by another spook and lots of silliness.  That was Cole.  Dante was perfect.  I mean simply perfect—an A plus ride.  He did absolutely nothing wrong—that is—if you don’t count not wanting to turn around to go back home.  He was so happy to be out, he wanted to keep going.

Sure, he was excited and tossed his head around.  He always tosses his head when he is feeling good.  No matter how much he tossed his head, his feet did just what I wanted them to do.  After a while, even the head tossing that went away.

He readily stepped into the river, he had fully functional brakes and nothing seemed to bother him.  He spent the time looking to the left and looking to the right—there was so much to see after the long winter.  The ride was mostly trotting on the way out and we walked on the way home.

That was my ride.  Ellen’s was much different.  Cole was playing games with Ellen, and she fell right into his trap.  He would refuse to go—and say that he needed a treat.  She would give him the treat, and a few minutes later, he would stop and refuse to go, again.  I told her he wasn’t supposed to get treats on demand, but she has a hard time saying no to him.  The good news—he will be just fine when I ride him.  He always is.

He’s the one that spooked when the loud motorcycle went by.  Dante ignored it.  Cole refused to go down the river bank on the way home.  We just watched on the other side.  (Cole doesn’t like the mud.  Dante likes to slide down the mud.)  Oh, and Cole had a Cole Burst.  That is what we call it when he just jumps in the air and say he wants to go.  It is easy to stop him, so they don’t intimidate either of us, but it is not something that Dante does.  Cole was doing silly walk—and I saw him side-passing a few times, too.  There is never a dull moment when you are riding Cole!  None of it was scary except when he spooked and slipped while crossing the river.  It is never fun to have a horse fall in the river.

So, overall, I had the easy ride, and Ellen had the fun one.  I don’t know if she will take Dante on the next trail ride and give me my entertaining horse back or if she will stick with Cole a few more times.  I’ll keep you updated.