Your Horse Camping and Trail Riding Network
After a few days rest and the completion of a few more repairs and chores, Flash and I took another ride along Cypress Creek, this time passing the parking lot and going about a mile or so farther, for a round trip of just over 10 miles. When I looked at the GPS map on Google Earth, I realized that I had just about reached the western edge of Riverbend Park to the south on the other side of the road, where we used to trailer to, in order to do their 6+ miles loop trail inside. I looked more carefully at the trail, as I had heard they had added a way to go over the Indiantown Rd. Bridge without going on the road, and sure enough, I found it. From there, we can get to the tunnel under the road which will take us right into the park. It will add quite a few miles to the trip, but then again, we’re supposed to be conditioning for future endurance events, right? That will be a much longer ride, but hopefully, we’ll be able to find the time! After we got back, Jeff and I decided to finally mix the horses together, that is, our Apollo and Flash with his boarder’s horse Frost. Up to now, they’ve only been looking at each other over the fence, and at first Frost was kind of mean, running up to the fence with his teeth bared anytime one of the other horses came to visit. I saw Flash trying hard to get along with him, but he was always met with some resistance at first. After almost three weeks, though, they seemed to have settled down, and having worn out Flash on a long ride, we figured everyone would be okay, so we let Frost out. They stayed away from each other, but they were certainly aware of each other, so we watched them for about 20 minutes, and nothing happened. They all grazed in their respective corners, so Jeff went off to Publix and I went in to start Hubby’s dialysis. A while later, I went out to check on them, and I noticed that Frost’s mouth was all covered in red, so I thought he had gotten into some of the red berries around Jeff’s place, some of which I know aren’t good for horses, so I told him about it when he got back, but determined the berries he probably got into weren’t toxic. Half an hour later, Jeff came back to me to tell me that the red wasn’t from berries, it was blood, that Frost was bleeding from broken teeth! I went to look, and sure enough, several of his teeth were hanging like they were on a hinge, dropping down to his tongue! OMG! He was incredibly subdued about it, which is why I didn’t catch it, probably from shock I guess. Obviously, he had been kicked in the teeth, so I decided I’d better go check my horses for any damage. Since Apollo had bullied Flash around for six months after we got them together, I figured it was Apollo, but he was unscathed. Then I checked out Flash and sure enough, found a great big wound caused by teeth marks, so obviously he got bit by Frost and he reacted as only a horse can, by kicking him, getting in a lucky shot (or unlucky, as the case may be) that broke Frost’s teeth or jaw, we weren’t sure what. The owner came and picked him up to take him to the animal hospital, understandably unhappy, but what can you do? Horses will behave like horses, there’s not much you can do, except keep them permanently apart, which we didn’t really want to do. We were hoping they’d all get along so we could all ride together, but of course, if they don’t get along on the ground, they’re not about to get along in the saddle, at least not with ME in the saddle, thank you very much. Sorry it happened, a hard lesson learned, but it seems that Frost has had trouble before, so I discovered from some relatives that got there before the owner, which would have been good to know before… Anyway, they drove Frost away, and we settled down for the rest of the evening.
While feeding the horses this morning I got into a chat with the group that had been camping next to the covered stalls, and in particular, a woman named Nancy who also has a Paso Fino. She invited me to ride with her, but I told her I’d have to see how Hubby was feeling this morning, in case he felt up to riding. Generous Hubby said, by all means, take a ride with another Paso Fino person and see what happens, so that’s what I did. Flash was calm for about the first half mile, then after that he started getting really fussy, jumping and pulling, at times he literally was cantering in place! Not sure what got into him, except maybe he wanted to move out more, but Nancy was working on teaching her horse to just walk quietly, so I didn’t want to interfere with that. There were a couple of times I let him run, though, but evidently not enough, because he kept prancing almost all the rest of the time. What a workout! Flash worked up quite a sweat, too! We were out for nearly two hours, so it was a good workout for everyone. Nancy was pleased her horse stayed calm through Flash’s histrionics, even bumping into her a couple of times. Crazy horse, don’t know what got into him, he was perfect last week! Anyway, got him put away, then spent the rest of the afternoon dialyzing Hubby before settling in for the evening.
