Hoof Blogs

Flossie's 183rd Lesson

FLOSSIE'S 183rd LESSON

I had a wonderful ride on Flossie this morning, but it didn’t start out that way. She
gave me a very hard time when I first mounted. I gathered some long tree branches that
were lying around the yard and used them for ‘cavaletties’ in the middle of the paddock
for her to trot over, and I put my cones down in a row in the middle of the paddock,
several feet apart, for her to weave between. She didn’t want any part of anything. She
even bucked and reared once. I mean really reared, she didn’t just lever a little ways
off the ground, so I ‘broke my crop on her’ for that and managed to get her into a trot.
I circled her and circled her until I got her close enough to the branches. Then I
pointed her at them and encouraged her to trot over them. She finally realized I was
asking for something, and once that clicked, she started to think. However, she still
went away from the exercise in a temper. I took her to the ‘arena’ and although she was
throwing her head in every direction, I got her to keep moving forward in straight lines and in circles. I finally
had to yell ‘Quit it’ to get her to stop throwing her head. She stopped immediately. I
truly believe horses use body language to cuss and I think she was using her
head-throwing to swear at me.

Later, I took her around the track only because there were no power machines working on
the road today. She stopped near the dam when she came to the part of the track closest
to the road. She was looking for machines. Once she realized there weren’t any around,
it didn’t take a lot to convince her to keep moving forward, though. The biggest worry
were the men who were working near the fence along the railroad line on the opposite side
of the track. She didn’t want to go past them at all, so I had her passing them by
taking her through the paddock, eventually getting closer and closer to the track where
she finally went past. It seems every ride these days calls for my having to match wits
with her. I always have to have something up my sleeve so we end up doing what I want us
to be doing and not whatever she wants.

I brought her back to the ‘cavaletties’ and weaving in and out of the cones again before
I took her down the driveway to cool her out. She did them better and better with each
pass and wouldn’t you know she weaves as well as Silver did around the poles at Capricorn
Coast Trail Rides! She seems to not only understand the exercise, but to enjoy doing it
as well. Thus, we ended on a positive note.

After I had groomed her from head to tail, and all the carrots had been distributed, I
took a walk off Des’ property looking for trails to ride. I went past the construction
site that’s in front of Des’ driveway, but there is no safe way to ride a horse there as
things are now. There’s a deep ditch just next to the fence, where the new road is going
to be built. There’s no way to navigate around it on horseback. I can only imagine the
commotion it’s going to cause once the machines come back and start working on the road
there again.

Des lives on Waterford/Tamborine Road, which is busy, noisy, and very much in use, so I
took the first left, Cambogan Road, which is quieter, and decided to knock on a door or
two to see if I could find someone home who could tell me where the trails are located.
However, when I came to these ‘doors’, I couldn’t even get close. All the homes on that
street are set well off from the road with long, long driveways, and they all have huge
gates with “Beware of the Dog” signs on them. I could either see or hear the dogs, so I
knew the warnings weren’t there just for the fun of it. The houses are extremely
gorgeous, huge, and surrounded by acres and acres of land. I saw a few horses and even a
couple of cows, but I didn’t see anyone I could talk to.

Lynn may well live in one of these houses. I’d like to take a walk down the road that
runs in front of the barn that’s located in the empty lot beside Des’ track, but since
the road is blocked due to construction, I can’t find a way around it. That’s the road
Lynn had come down that day I met her when she was on foot. How disappointing! I truly
wish I had taken her phone number that day we spoke about riding trails together once her
horse’s jaw is healed.

I told Des everything I had done this morning with Flossie in the paddock, and what I did
to find a way to get Flossie down trail. I told him we’re trapped on his property for
the time being and he said, “Oh, you’ll find a way!” All I can do at this point is hope
to hear from Lynn again sometime soon. Maybe she has a trailer that we can use to
trailer Flossie to the trails. There are some nice strips of grassy areas along the
roadsides on Cambogan Road that would be nice to ride Flossie down, even if we never
found the trails, but here again, because of all the construction going on now in front
of Des’ place, there’s no way to get her over to them.