The bonny brown steed

We had a packed house last night: seven pairs in the ring, what with having El Bandito back from travel, a barn instructor signed up for a class, and a new student in for assessment. Our ring can comfortably hold about six pairs, so there was a certain bumper-cars element. One of my former teachers used to exhort us with cheering cries of, "Nobody crash and die!" We didn't, but what with different skill levels, horse speeds, and hearing abilities, there were some iffy moments. There's a real adrenaline zing when you find that the person who used to be behind you didn't hear the command to switch reins and that both of you are suddenly playing chicken.

For once I was glad not to be on Lear. Thing the first, he sometimes corners poorly, which is bad in any event but doubly so with the sort of lobster quadrille we dance in a crowded Grayson-having ring; thing the second, imagine how much fun it would've been to have him spook in a crowd. BIG FUN. But he was hors(e) de combat with a leg wound, having kicked out at the canter during an earlier class, stuck his foot through the fence, and tried to get free by thrashing around like a big eedjit. For some reason he was put on the horse list for our class anyway, and I all unknowing signed up for him. His zen attitude of last week was gone like the morning mist, forcing me to deal with a flurry of nips as we haltered and went to the ties, so not until he was secured to the port and starboard did I spy the vivid blue bandage on his near hind leg. After I got the full story, I chucked him back in his stall, then went and looked pitiful until the barn agreed that I was owed a horse and could use little Connemara Dylan.

We did decent work together, this time without bucking or other egregious misbehavior. He's still convinced that the gate end of the ring is haunted, although he walks through it cheerfully enough when it's time to go home. We did lots of bending, sailed through transitions between upward trot and the forward version, didn't pitch fits over Pat's sadistic 3/2 waltz-time post exercise, and handled the canter with aplomb. He's an easy lad to sit, though so small that I always have trouble finding his center of balance for the post (the effect, for anyone curious, is that if you tip forward at all as you rise, there is no horse in front of you—there you are, balancing on the edge of a cliff and about to fall).

After class I ran into Doc, who was standing on cross-ties as we were untacking, and he whickered at me to put him away. He has been taken out of all the adult classes and now spends his time carrying the little kids, who weigh less and don't ask much except not to fall off (Doc: "No probs"). The barn has had his hocks injected with steroids to reduce some of his arthritis, but there ain't no real cure for aging. I'm trying to get the barn to give me his schedule, so that I can hand-walk him in the park when he's not being used. I owe him that at least.