We all get those days where everything is just not going your way. I have them quite a bit more than the average person. They usually happen at the barn...
This is just one day out of a few...
I get to the barn and Mia and I pile out of the car after having a pathetic discussion about how much we would rather curl up in bed than ride and do barn duty. We trek across the parking lot to the barn, walk the long aisleway and mope toward the board which tells us which horses we will be riding that day. Mia is riding Danny and I am riding Gracie. This is just our luck because these are horses that wouldn't have been our top choice. So what do we do when we are chosen to ride horses we don't want to ride? We "enthusiastically" gather our tack and walk up the hill to the upper barn discussing our pathetic day. Just then, Belle and Taco arrive. We see them get out of their car and share with them the news...it must be a bad day for Belle too because she looks like she wants to go back to bed too. Taco is excited though. She wants to jump and that is what we are doing today. Belle and Taco enter the lower barn and Mia tells me the latest gossip about Karen. This always manages to brighten our day. Karen is always interesting conversation. (One day, you will understand because there will be a Karen in any group of friends...look up Dane Cook The Friend that Nobody Likes). After the gossip, we go our separate ways. I go tack up my horse and head up to the out door jumping ring. Amazingly, Karen is riding today. Belle is riding Scotty, Taco is riding Manny, Damon is riding Jazz, and Karen is riding Wilbur. We all go through a regular lesson in which Karen gets off in the middle of a jump course complaining about her dislocated spine, everyone has no idea how to do the jumping course due to poor explanation, Damon practically falls off Jazz because Jazz decides he's going to spook while going over the jump, Taco holds the horse extremely tight so that Manny doesn't run off after jumping a fence, Mia gets yelled at to half halt when clearly the horse has other issues, and I still have no idea what I should be doing to prepare for a jump...all while Belle smoothly sails over the jump with Scotty tucking his legs like a little boy. We all decide to go for a much needed walk. We discuss our failures for the day, our extreme desire to work with one horse for the whole semester, and the ridiculous way Karen got out of class for the day. We make our way back to the barn, untack, and groom our horses. It's finally time for my absolute favorite time of the day...cleaning stalls. My stall cleaning horse is Suzette. She hates my guts. I try to make this experience less dreadful by singing or playing music while cleaning the stall out. (It's really important to keep a positive attitude at the barn if your day is going awful) You see, Suzette is this beautiful copper colored horse with a blonde main and tail. I picture her more as a mean girl than a mean mare. I think in Suzette's heart she just wants to be free. She spends most of her day looking out of her window. The reason I know that Suzette hates my guts is because she likes to knock my wheelbarrow over when its full of pee and poo, whip me in the face with her tail when I am picking the poo out of her stall, and stand in the one area of the stall that I am trying to work on. There isn't one day that these things don't happen. People down the aisle can usually hear the yells from Suzette's stall of me screaming "COOL!! SUZETTE!!! COOL!!!!" When I'm finished with Suzette's stall I sit on the couch and rest until its time for Practical Concepts of Equine Care with Jane. Mia and I always find something to laugh about. It could be keeping warm in a horse cooler and playing with the barn cats, something is always entertaining. Class starts but instead of class Jane decides that we should start with feed crew early for the night. This is one of the greatest things you will hear in Practical Concepts.. Barn duty involves feeding, sweeping the mats, blowing the aisle, turning out horses, racking, and being yelled at for doing things wrong. Finally...the day has ended. Mia and I get into her car and drive back to school. Time for supper in our nasty barn clothes with all the clean people at school.
Please, don't be discouraged by this post. It's not to make the equestrian program look awful. It's not! It's actually very educational and interesting. I encourage people to look up Averett University's Equestrian Program!!
***Some names have changed due to the fact that I would not like to cause problems between myself and my classmates.
