Gremlins in the Woods

After we got done with our arena work yesterday, I took Legs out onto the trails in the back part of the park. Sometimes after the horse has worked particularly hard, he's not all that happy about heading out to work hills in the back.

Yesterday was one of those days. The horse was awesome at the collected work so it took its toll. As we walked across the parking lot to reach the first part of our "trail" ride, my poor horse moved at more of a crawl than a walk.

Getting Legs to pick up the pace was not that easy. Having a horse that is known for having a great walk is pretty cool when the horse actually walks but this snail's pace that Legs was on was frustrating at best. All the horse wanted to do was drop his head to the ground and mope his way to the trails. I think he thought if he moved slow enough I'd have pity on him and forget the workout that was coming next.

Luckily even when Legs is tired he doesn't refuse to do other gaits. His walk may have been at a snail's pace but there was nothing wrong with his jog, trot, lope, canter or even gallop. Maybe when I ask for another gait the horse figures out that I'm serious about work. Whatever it is, he's always responsive except for that darn walk.

The parking lot is hard even if it is just a gravel surface so I really don't like to ask the horse to do anything but walk across it. Still when Legs is dragging like he was yesterday I can't help but think I could drag him quicker across that parking lot than he gets there on his own.By the time we reach the trail, I'm bored to death and thinking up evil ways to torture my horse to get even.

Yesterday I had all kinds of ideas in mind for how to work those trails to get the most out of my horse. We started off down the long lane at the back of the park circling around to make a pass at the short but steep hill that really makes Legs work.

Going down the center lane there were all kinds of "new" logs placed across the path. By the time we'd gone over about four of these things and I'd seen one little white abandoned sock, I was beginning to think there were little gremlins out there sabotaging the trails.

Soon after I heard giggles, followed by lots of rustling leaves. Legs and I headed down our normal route to that hill and ran right smack dab into the band of little hellions.

I'm pretty sure there were a dozen of them, little boys maybe nine or ten years old. There were two older boys maybe tweeners chaperoning the group I'd guess. From the looks of it I'd guess it was some kind of day camp situation with the older boys being counselors.Here they were in the midst of my trail ride stringing red yarn between the trees and foraging for anything that moved.

The boys were spread out all around up on the trails and in between. The minute one of them spied my horse, he sounded the alarm. Next thing you know these twelve little gremlins have their twenty-four eyes all turned our direction.

I could see from their expressions, the boys weren't really sure what to do. The older boys began barking directions and some of the younger boys listened while others didn't. Legs and I stood there sizing up the situation trying to figure out what we should do. The last thing I wanted was some kind of wreck.

To be continued...................

Gremlins.......Up Close and Personal

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