Enjoyed a great ride on Pongo this morning at the crack of dawn. Motivated, wut wut!?
Ann mentioned I should do more hills with Pongo to strengthen his buns of steel. Problem is, our hills are a little funky at the ranch. There is a trail along the right hand border of the property with a very good hill. Problem is it’s fenced in with WIRE…BARBED wire on both sides creating a little aisle of death should your horse spook. Harumph.
I decided to brave it this morning (this was a dumb idea, I realize) and set off after our dressage ride out to the hill…up up up we climbed to the tippy top. Pongo was amped, but not acting naughty, until he saw the KILLER DONKEY. On the next hill, about half of a mile away there was a big, ugly donkey, hanging out with a bunch of sheep. He hollered at us and snorted (donkeys snort?) before dashing up the hill to his sheep buddies. Pongo was stupefied at first and then, as expected, got very big and puffed up.
CRAP.
Why do I always have these little adventures at 6:00am when there is no one else at the farm to scoop me up should I be deposited on the ground by my enormous horse? I turned him around to walk back down to the barn the way we came as he got more and more worked up. At the apex of the giant hill we'd just ascended I realized that it was incredibly steep and with my high as a kite horse, I felt like I was staring down Splash Mountain. My stomach did a flip flop. Nope, not going back that way. I knew the second I started him down that hill, he was going to bolt and that would be bad.
Ok, turn back around. Back to face the donkey. Ugh.
I sat back in my seat (remembering the sage words, “no one ever falls off the back of their horse”) and just focused on getting to the path that lead around the side of the hill and back to the barn.
Pongo kept his cool. High, prancing and feeling oh-so-giant, but no funny business while the donkey stared menacingly at us.
GOOD BOY.
We lived. He didn’t leave me to fend for myself with the killer donkey. I dare say he’s growing up.
Officially need to find another venue for hill work.
Oh my! I doubt most horses would have kept their cool with a killer donkey braying menacingly at them. My guess is Tucker would have "protected" me by backing down the hill sideways and into the barbed wire. What a good spotted boy!!
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