Rico...the nutcase.
Enrique was a nut bar yesterday. An absolute, total freak of nature. In two years of owning him, I have never had such a wild, crazy ride.
It all started when I went to get him. Normally he comes up the last few feet to see me. This time, he started snorting and was like “I’ve never seen you before in my life. Who are you?” But I wasn’t wearing anything different, so not sure what his problem was. So I finally caught him, and brought him up to tack him up.
In the cross ties, he normally looks half dead. Head down, leg cocked, really unexcited about life. Yesterday though, he was pawing, his head was straight up and calling and whinnying. So I tacked him up and was like “hrm. Maybe I should lunge him first…” bu I stepped away from him in the arena to reach the lunge line, and he took off, bucking and galloping by himself. So then I decided to let him run around a bit and blow off some steam.
So 5 minutes later, he’s panting and I figure it’s a good time to get on. As soon as my butt hits the saddle, he took off in a canter. Yelled at him and brought him back down and got my stirrup back, and proceeded to try to walk. Except it was a “I’m so tense, I’m going to shuffle along” type of thing. So I thought I’d go into a trot.
And then he proceeded to spook at the dark spot on the wall. And then the ladder on the wall (that’s been there for weeks might I add) and then the light reflecting on the wall, and the fake flowers. Holy crap, the fake flowers. Couldn’t get within 20ft of them without him throwing up a little rear and trying to spin around. And anything and everything else that he could think of. And Enrique’s spooks are a big pain in the ass, because he’s so freaking big, that he can literally tune out the rider. What he’ll do is stop dead for a moment, and then lurch into a gallop. It’s very unnerving to have your momentum stopped so suddenly and then have him shoot forward again, and I ended up almost dangling more times than I could count.
My “favorite” moment though was the lengthened trot. We were coming across the diagonal and I had THE best lengthened trot I’ve ever gotten out of him (probably because he had so much freaking energy) and we were half way down the arena when he saw the flowers, stopped, spun around and booked it in the other direction. The choreography of that moment was beautiful. Especially as I’m yelling “Jesus Christ Enrique!!!” Yup. Beautiful.
Despite my near misses, I was actually pleased with him. He had so much energy and forward motion that I could channel him more (when he wasn’t freaking out…) if I could just get him together that way without him literally shitting himself…
I am a bit concerned though that he’s not feeling well. About 8 of the horses have had fever in the past week, and runny poop, so I don’t know… you would think it would have made him lethargic, but who knows.
It all started when I went to get him. Normally he comes up the last few feet to see me. This time, he started snorting and was like “I’ve never seen you before in my life. Who are you?” But I wasn’t wearing anything different, so not sure what his problem was. So I finally caught him, and brought him up to tack him up.
In the cross ties, he normally looks half dead. Head down, leg cocked, really unexcited about life. Yesterday though, he was pawing, his head was straight up and calling and whinnying. So I tacked him up and was like “hrm. Maybe I should lunge him first…” bu I stepped away from him in the arena to reach the lunge line, and he took off, bucking and galloping by himself. So then I decided to let him run around a bit and blow off some steam.
So 5 minutes later, he’s panting and I figure it’s a good time to get on. As soon as my butt hits the saddle, he took off in a canter. Yelled at him and brought him back down and got my stirrup back, and proceeded to try to walk. Except it was a “I’m so tense, I’m going to shuffle along” type of thing. So I thought I’d go into a trot.
And then he proceeded to spook at the dark spot on the wall. And then the ladder on the wall (that’s been there for weeks might I add) and then the light reflecting on the wall, and the fake flowers. Holy crap, the fake flowers. Couldn’t get within 20ft of them without him throwing up a little rear and trying to spin around. And anything and everything else that he could think of. And Enrique’s spooks are a big pain in the ass, because he’s so freaking big, that he can literally tune out the rider. What he’ll do is stop dead for a moment, and then lurch into a gallop. It’s very unnerving to have your momentum stopped so suddenly and then have him shoot forward again, and I ended up almost dangling more times than I could count.
My “favorite” moment though was the lengthened trot. We were coming across the diagonal and I had THE best lengthened trot I’ve ever gotten out of him (probably because he had so much freaking energy) and we were half way down the arena when he saw the flowers, stopped, spun around and booked it in the other direction. The choreography of that moment was beautiful. Especially as I’m yelling “Jesus Christ Enrique!!!” Yup. Beautiful.
Despite my near misses, I was actually pleased with him. He had so much energy and forward motion that I could channel him more (when he wasn’t freaking out…) if I could just get him together that way without him literally shitting himself…
I am a bit concerned though that he’s not feeling well. About 8 of the horses have had fever in the past week, and runny poop, so I don’t know… you would think it would have made him lethargic, but who knows.