Awesome Horse, Dante

Awesome Horse, Dante

Ellen, Kevin, Shari and I went out for a ride in the park.  Since it was so hot, it was hard to motivate Dante to go much faster than a slow trot.  Bella can go slow, but not that slow.  On days like this, we split up with either Kevin riding with Shari and me staying back with Ellen or I will ride with Shari.  Starry and Bella absolutely adore each other.  It seems cruel to keep them apart, so on this morning, Ellen and I let them go on off without us.

They will stop and wait for us periodically, and generally, we are much closer together on the way home since they will go slower and Dante goes a little faster when we are heading to the barn.

As usual, they waited for us at the second river.  When we caught up, they crossed and walked slowly down the trail.  Ever since the day that Cole fell in the river which startled Starry--causing him to fall, too, we avoid crossing the river all at one time unless at least one horse is on sure footing.  It makes our river crossings slower, but we are a little safer this way.

Ellen started Dante across as I waited at the river's edge.  She has been working on keeping him moving when he crosses the water, and he has improved so much, but she has to keep up with it.  Dante is always looking for an opening to slip back into his wicked ways.

They were about two thirds across when I saw Dante take an odd step.  Ellen stopped and in a slightly panicked voice, said just two words, "Fishing line."

She backed up a little bit and slowly maneuvered Dante around like a coal barge.  She told me that the wire, which must have been tangled somehow in the low branches above the river was stretched across his chest.  He felt it, and communicated to Ellen that there was a problem.  She looked down, and first thought it was just a spider web.  Suddenly, it dawned on her that it was a fishing line, and she knew she had to retreat before Dante somehow got tangled in it.

Now, she had a new problem.  There are two ways that we cross the river over there.  There is Ellen's way, which goes under the tree branches.  It isn't as deep, but you have to go around some rocks.  There aren't many rocks there this year, since Kevin was able to clear them out, so I have been riding that way, too.

The other way is Kevin's way--which is the way the Shari and Kevin went.  You don't have to worry about rocks, but it is measurably deeper and for a longer distance than Ellen's way.  The thought of going through the deeper water makes Ellen very anxious.  Dante has done it before with me and a few times with Ellen last year, but she still doesn't like it.  She had no choice, now.  The only other option was to cross the ford, but since she was already in the water, that didn't make much sense.

She brought Dante back towards me and slowly positioned herself to head for the deep section.  Dante was not moving very willingly, and I could see Ellen get nervous.  It looked like Dante was done with river crossing.

Then I saw it--Dante's tail slowly rising!  He had to do his business.  When Dante first started doing his business in the river a few years ago, he scared himself with the splashing.  So what did he do?  He continued doing it in the river--scaring Ellen, too.  Over time, he has improved, but he still gets very tense and sometimes he will rush across.  Ellen tries to keep him standing, and when he does, he gets a treat.  This year, it has barely been a problem, but Ellen was already nervous.

She held him still, he did what he needed to do and then Ellen knew he would cross.  That was the reason he was so reluctant to move.

She carefully guided Dante across.  Since the river was very low, the water was only a couple inches above his knees.  Step my step, they got to the other side.  

After all this time, Bella and Starry were nowhere to be seen.  Dante was in the lead.  We trotted up to the next  hill, walked up it and proceeded to trot down the trail.  Dante was in the lead and going at a good speed, but with all the standing around, Cole was feeling like going faster.  I couldn't get him to match Dante's speed.  We would catch up, stop, walk a bit and start trotting.  

We were walking when I heard a very loud motorcycle.  I figured I might as well just stop him until it passed--since I was having no trouble keeping up with Dante.  As it passed, Cole jumped and tried to take off.  At that moment, there was also a man riding a bike up the hill on the parallel paved bike path.  He had a radio on his bike that was blasting one of those bad 70's songs.  

I was able to contain Cole by bending him.  He hopped twice, but didn't get anywhere.  Dante noticed Cole and took off running.  Due to a bend in the trail, Dante was going straight for the paved bike path.  Ellen swerved him away--and then he stopped.

We both decided it wasn't the motorcycle that caused the problem--but the bad 70's song.

After we caught our breath, we continued trotting.  Eventually, we saw Shari and Kevin--totally oblivious of all that was going on.  When they saw us trotting, they trotted, too.  We caught them at the end of the trail. 

The rest of the ride was uneventful and easy.  Ellen had to cross the river through the deeper water, but other than being unsure on the best route, she did well.  We took it easy on the way home because it was so warm, and enjoyed being with our friends.

Ellen was so thrilled that Dante told her there was a problem in the river instead of pushing through the wire or getting scared of it.  Dante is such an awesome horse!