That’s me!
When I started going out for walks with my mom it was kind of fun for the first three days because it’s been a while since she could spend any real quality time with me, and she starting taking me out only a little bit at a time, a little bit further every day, walking around the block one way, walking around the block the other way, walking two blocks the next day… so I never got nervous or anything. I like things so much better when I’m not nervous!
Well then while I was really liking the time my mom was spending with me, I didn’t really want to go out on those walks, because, well, I am a bit lazy, and I don’t like any kind of work any more, because when my mom got me off the racetrack (where she’d been my groom for two years), she told me I was retired. I of course thought she meant I was retired from everything but eating, but apparently she just meant retired from racing. We still haven’t gotten that issue completely settled. So now once in a while when I’m not lame from my navicular I have to get ridden, either in an arena (boo!), or go out in the big world by myself.
I’d just as soon spend quality time with my mom with her standing and just petting (no brushing, I hate brushing) and admiring me and feeding me carrots, like she does when I’m out on the Hunewill Ranch in the summers, but oh no, now I have to get my big lazy butt to work and take her on a ride before I get any carrots. Of course, it’s not a hard ride or anything; all we do is walk, and if we get to a soft path we trot a little, not enough to even make me take a deep breath. But, it’s still work, where I could be back in my pen just being petted!
However, if I have to come clean, it’s really not so bad going out to work, because it’s not like I’m totally working hard, or even really working; every day we get to visit and hang out with somebody who pets me and admires me tells me how beautiful I am, which is pretty cool (because I am).
Every day before we leave my place, Shirley comes out and visits with us for a while, and one day 2 other people keeping a horse at my place visited with us too for a while, (all of them said how handsome I was, to which I fluttered my eyelashes at them and gave them the big moon eyes while looking very modest), then today we went to visit Astrid. Astrid gave me carrots over the winters that I stayed at Jackie’s place when my mom wasn’t around. Astrid thinks I’m beautiful too. Today she took our picture
and petted me and tried to bring a black cat to visit me, because I was looking at the cat and wanted to sniff him. I like cats a lot better than dogs, because we had a cool cat Edmund at the racetrack that liked to sleep in my stall. I don’t like dogs because they always jump up and bonk me in the nose. Astrid picked up the cat for me to sniff but I guess I was just too big and beautiful because the cat leaped out of Astrid’s arms in panic scratching Astrid with her claws and hit the fence on the way down and ran off. Oh well, I like white cats better anyway.And today while walking across this field of creosote bushes and cactus, there were jackrabbits jumping out from under me all over the place as usual (they don’t scare me like they do Raffiq and Spice and those other Arabs), when suddenly here’s this jackrabbit, rocketing towards us. Huh?
I hesitated in my walk just slightly and popped my head up, because this was quite unusual, and what do I see next but a coyote chasing this rabbit at us!
Suddenly the coyote saw us and she checked herself a little bit, like Whoa! Wasn’t expecting a horse out here! The rabbit got away because he ran right in front of my front legs, and the coyote diverted her path away from us. She kept casually loping on past us and looking over her shoulder at us. She’d probably never seen such a beautiful horse like me before!
I also like looking at all the horses that we pass in pens. They like to stop and watch me walk by because I’m beautiful and I like to stop and watch them watch me. Whenever I pass Raffiq’s place, he screams at me and I whinny back. Raffiq and I have lived together a few times. He’s a little guy but he’s always the boss wherever he goes. I haven’t met Spice yet but she’s seen me a few times and I am pretty sure she thinks I’m beautiful too. Today we passed a big herd of mules (I had a mule Brenda for a girlfriend once) in a pen. They were running around like a bunch of foals in springtime, chasing each other, throwing up their heels, nipping and kicking at each other. I watched them a while. I think they were showing off just for me.
And you know, I don’t get nervous at all out on these rides! I just plod along (my mom says I have a big 100-mile walk, but I sure hope I don’t have to carry her 100 miles!) looking at the scenery and birds and rabbits. And you know how a lot of Arabs always spook at flapping plastic bags in the bushes? Well not me, because you never know – there might be carrots in those bags! I always go up to the bags and stick my nose in them and investigate. I haven’t found any carrots yet, but I know that one day one of those bags will have some!
Okay, so I guess going out for easy rides isn’t such a bad thing.
I wonder who we will get to visit next!
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