Starry and Dante

Starry and Dante 

Ellen has been riding Dante on the trail in the morning with Kevin and Starry.  It has worked out so well.  One of the reasons for their success—Starry and Dante are fantastic buddies.

Both of them are mild mannered horses that don’t believe in hurrying—even on the way home.  They just like to go out for a stroll.  Both can walk very, very slow.  When they are together, they walk at the same speed and are very happy to do it.  Ellen and Kevin can chat, easily.  When I ride with them on Cole, he tends to walk faster, and I keep getting too far ahead to join the conversation.

Starry does naturally trot fast than Dante, but that hasn’t been a problem.  Usually, Kevin lets Ellen go first at Dante speed.  He will walk while they slowly trot ahead, and then Kevin will trot to catch up. 

This time of year, Starry is notoriously famous for becoming frantic about the bugs. He doesn’t want to walk quietly.  Instead, he swishes, tosses his head around and prances.  According to Ellen, when he is with Dante, he just walks behind him quietly.

When I ride with them, it is funny to watch Starry.  It doesn’t matter where Starry is in the pack, he quickly finds away to be behind Dante.  Cole isn’t good enough—he needs his Dante.

Dante tends to get nervous when other horses are too close to him.  Even if Cole passes him, Dante with tense up and sometimes even step sideways to get further away from Cole.  Usually, he is just fine if Starry is close to him.  Starry is his buddy.