Hoof Blogs

Flossie's 64th Lesson

FLOSSIE'S 64th LESSON

I had an easy-going ride on Flossie this morning. Her pace felt a bit off for some reason
and I couldn�t figure it out. She�s not lame; her legs are cool and she stood on all four
without favoring one and she walked, trotted, and cantered fine. I thought maybe I wasn�t
sitting well in the saddle and maybe that�s what was throwing her off. We didn�t work on
anything in particular; we just enjoyed our time together.

Des has two other horses on his property now and I�m wondering if they aren�t Gary�s horses
come back to �haunt� him. Des said Gary has had his horses on his property off and on for
years. One of them kept getting in our way when I was riding along near Des� house and I
had to shout at him to move him away.

It wasn�t until I was walking Flossie on foot around the track to cool her out, though, when
the gelding really started to cause problems. Flossie did not want him with us, but he
insisted. He tagged along behind us most of the time, but at one point for some reason
Flossie thought she had had enough and started running forward suddenly as we came around
the track near the road. Of course that set the gelding off and he ran down the track and
off into the paddock. He came back again, though, so Flossie did it again. I don�t know
what she was trying to accomplish because she didn�t accomplish anything.

Later, I ended up taking Flossie�s carrots to her while she grazed alone in the small
paddock. Since the other two horses herded her out of the yard, in order to get away from
them, she put herself in isolation.

I measured her and discovered she�s grown since March. She was fifteen hands but she�s now
seventeen hands. She used to weigh a thousand pounds, but she now weighs 1100. (I�m
guessing here because I don�t know what 500 kgs equates to). She looks really good; you
can�t see one rib on her and she�s muscled up in all the right places with a nice layer of
fat, and not too much of it, either.

While I was waiting for Normie, I sat down in the shade under a big tree in the middle of
the little paddock. Flossie wandered over to me and put her nose in my ear and sniffed and
sniffed. I was hoping she�d do it forever, but of course that would have been impossible.
Eventually she got bored being on her own and suddenly just took off, slipping under the
wire and trotting out towards her pals, ending with a canter as she neared the dam. I could
see full well she�s not lame, which made me wonder again why she felt off when I was riding
her.

Of course I didn�t neglect Magic Harry who�s still in his own little paddock. I gave him
his handful of carrots and he chomped away at them gratefully.

The other horse that�s on the property is living in another paddock which has a nice shed so
he can come in and out of the weather as he pleases. He�s a beautiful horse with a shiny
copper coat, alert eyes and ears, and a handsome, intelligent face. I gave him some carrots
today, too. In fact, the only one who didn�t get any carrots was �trouble-maker� and that�s
only because when Flossie and Bambi were getting theirs, he didn�t show any interest
whatsoever.