Saturday, Nov. 9, 2013 - The Best Laid Plans Don't Always Work Out

Knowing we wanted to take a long ride today, we set the alarm for 8:00, had our quick Nutrisystem breakfast bar and coffee, saddled up and headed up the lawn toward the trail head by 9:30. Hubby immediately notice his mare Clio was limping, so we stopped and examined her more fully, discovering some bad swelling on her back right fetlock, so we quickly changed our plans and headed back to camp. Just an experiment (since our horses have never been apart), I took Apollo to the end of camp to see if there was any possibility I could take a short ride alone (not that I'd be alone, the trails were packed.) That turned out to be impossible, as soon as Apollo realized Mama wasn't with us, he struggled with me all the way as we headed back toward the campsite, pawing the ground (even though he was pointed in the right direction) and jumping sideways and just generally throwing a tantrum. I managed to keep my seat (fortunately, since we were on tarmac, and dozens of eyes were watching me), and eventually we managed to sidle down the road, even though he kept pulling as if I was taking us in the wrong direction. By the time we got to the bath house I couldn't hold him anymore, and he took off at a gallop up the road back to the campsite. Unfortunately, he didn't stop right there, he passed Mama, went out into the yard a ways and then tried to buck me off again. I managed to hold on okay, and got him back to his halter, where he promptly settled down to his usual calm self. We unsaddled and put them on the anchors for a while, had a snack, then Hubby got busy with the slide out repair. Seems one side isn't opening fully on the bottom, so it's a tiny bit cockeyed. After several attempts, it didn't seem to matter what he did, it wasn't a lot better, but he did make the cables even, so he's hoping that during our next drive they'll jiggle into place and be a bit more even. Hey, we can hope, right? Settled down for an evening of television.