Green Horse Story or lemonaide from lemons - long

[Linda Flemmer <bluewolfranch@yahoo.com>]

Weekend story - prepping a green endurance horse. 
Delete now if not interested!

We are currently working getting our green 5 yo
gelding used to the activity and excitement of a
ridecamp before we really start to compete with him. 
Last weekend we planned to take him to an organized 3
day trail ride (non-competitive) with an expected 150
horses - kind of "immersion therapy".  Razz has camped
away from the farm twice up til now.  It sounded like
a good experience for him & fun for me & my husband.

I took Thursday off to pack and prepare for our 3 day
weekend.  Razz loaded quietly right behind my 14 yo
gelding Rocket.  Trailer loading work had paid off! 
He road quietly in the trailer - big improvement over
1 year ago when we bought him.  He shivered and
sweated the entire way then.

About 1/2 way to our ride, 21/2 hours later, I heard a
"clunk" from under our 1996 Dodge 2500.  I started
loosing power - lost the transmission!  &*^#%#@&

We limped into a farmer's market outside of
Winchester, Virginia and I called a friend who moved
there a few years ago.  Remember us?  Can you put up
our horses?  Karen said she'd pick us up in a few
hours when she got off work.  She'd put up the horses,
offered us a room for the night, dinner, and a spare
van to drive home.  Bless her!

Now what, though?  Hours to wait in a parking lot of a
farmers' market before Karen could get there.  Well,
Razz discovered cars.  Parked ones, moving ones, bus
loads of kids picking pumpkins.  Honking ones,
speeding ones, squealing ones, ones that back fired,
delivery trucks.

Razz discovered apples and sticky fingered kids! 
(Loves candied apples!)  He learned that he likes
apple pie and apple muffins and apple juice.  He
grudgingly admited that several hundered pumpkins on
the ground have yet to eat an Arab!

When we got to Karen's farm, he met 20+ strange
horses, 2 Spotted American Asses and their foals, an
assortment of strange dogs that wanted to play,
strange farm equipment, and GOATS!  Since we had
planned to ride that weekend, Karen invited us to ride
some with her Saturday.  Razz saw strange trails new
streams, a playground full of screaming kids.  He
calmly led the group past scarey areas when another
green horse in the group started acting up.

He & Rocket are "camping" at Karen's until our truck
is fixed (SOON, I hope).  Did we get to our weekend
trail ride?  No.  Did Razz get the experience that we
had hoped for?  In spades!  Watch out world - if he
does as well at endurance rides, he'll be a horse to
reckon with!

Linda Flemmer
Blue Wolf Ranch
Bruceton Mills, WV

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