My horse the loner.

That’s Piney, all alone in a 15 acre pasture. The rest of the horses were up in the barn, which is hidden from the pasture by a tree lined corridor of sorts. Piney apparently does very well as an only horse. My husbands cousin noticed that when all the horses are in the pasture, Piney will go up to the barn by himself and vise versa. He just doesn’t seem to bond with any particular horse and he just doesn’t fit into any herd he’s been placed in. I may be a crazy person in my thinking but I think that his history on the track may have something to do with it. Being stalled and kept away from other horses, and often many different horses most of his life. And since he was pinfired and freeze fired I’m sure he was kept in on stall rest away from other horses. But maybe that has nothing to do with it and he just prefers to be alone. I have to admit that the fact he is a loner makes for some good trail rides!

We spent most of the time up north at the lakes. Some people are lake people, I’m not one of those people. I don’t like boats or swimming, or laying out in the sun. Everyone calls me a weirdo because of it, especially around these parts! We stayed at the farm each night tough. Saturday night was real late when we got out there and it was almost dark out. Sunday morning I went out to get Piney and lost both my boots in the mud. By the time I got to the pasture I’d given up hope on ever bringing him in. So I just went and played with the horses in the pasture for a bit, then jumped the fence and headed back to the barn. When I got there I was greeted by all horses who decided to come in! Piney was not one of those horses. He stayed back in the pasture. So I started playing with hubby’s horse. He is quite a lover. He is a bit of a hellion to ride but he likes to be interacted with. I spent some time with him then it was time to hit the lakes. We got back late at night again but I noticed that the horses were by the barn I thought I would check to see if Piney was with them. He was so I grabbed him and put him in the pen on the side of the barn. I opened the side door so that he’d have some water and noticed that one of the horses had pooped in the 300 gallon stock tank. Want to guess how the rest of my evening went? I bailed out 300 gallons of poop soup one 3 gallon bucket at a time. I think I got done at about 11 o’clock and then hubby rinsed it out and filled it up. We got to bed around midnight. But I was excited to wake up in the morning because my horse was up at the barn! I woke up early and tacked him up and went out on the road alone. You’d never guess that it was his first real ride alone. He acted like he’s been doing it his whole life. He was so calm and relaxed I was even able to drop my reins and post a picture to Facebook. I met up with hubby and he rode for a little while with me then I had to head back because I needed to take pictures of my niece.

That evening when we got back to the farm hubby and I went for a short sunset ride but he wasn’t really in the mood to ride so I rode back to the barn with them then rode off by myself for a little while longer. I can’t say that I’ve ever been able to relax on a ride out by myself before Piney. I do keep my eyes out for horse eating rabbits, birds and deer, as well as any other predator that we might encounter but so far nothing has spooked him. I rode him around a burn barrel that was burning some papers and he was fine with it, I then rode him by all the parked tractors and that was fine. We even met a car on the road and he didn’t even blink. I love my trail horse. I still don’t know how I got so lucky to have him in my life!

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