Happy Birthday...

Today would have been my mom's 58th birthday.   To celebrate, I spent the majority of the day in the saddle.

Mount up time for a group trail ride was 11 am.  I really was undecided on which horse to ride.  I didn't really choose wisely I don't think.

I ended up with Bonnie.  I did choose riding discipline correctly... I choose Western.

One of the other riders in our group her mare Stella was really acting up.   She was crow hopping, head tossing, butt scooting...  just really non-sense.  Her owner P, was doing everything she could to keep her calm and not let her intrude on the other horses.  Bonnie fed off Stella's nervy self and was attempting to show her Mare-ish side too.  I told P, hope you don't mind but  I'm going to move up in the group.  She said "No Problem!! I understand".

So I moved Bonnie between two geldings and she calmed down very quickly.

Until... We went to cross a creek.  The two geldings in front stopped dead as soon as their feet hit the water.  Stella is behind her blowing a head gasket...  that's all it took.

Bonnie couldn't go forward the two geldings were stopped at the trail opening, and something was surely eating Stella behind her because she was bucking and rearing.

There was a very new rider between Stella and I, I had him move past me toward the water as I didn't want his gelding to panic at the two mares going bonkers.

When I turned Bonnie to go back up the bank toward Stella and past the newbie - Bonnie dropped her head and tried to buck.  I spun her around in circles keeping all four feet moving and on the ground.  Then she reared on me.  Ugh!  I stayed on... thankfully I was in a Western saddle - bit more things to hang on to!

P decided she and Stella had had enough and I didn't think it was safe for P to ride back to the barn alone.  We were about 30 to 40 minutes away.  So I made the decision to go with her.  Leaving the 3 geldings and their riders to enjoy their day out.

As soon as I pointed Bonnie at Stella she freaked out again.  Trying to buck and rear, so we did another series of circles which did NOTHING!  I ended up doing an emergency dismount as I was in fear of being thrown or knocked against a tree.  My back is at about 90 % and landing on the ground would surely be the end of my summer riding!

As soon as I was on the ground I immediately made Bonnie move out of my space - left, right, and back.  Then I lead Bonnie, P rode Stella all the way back to the barn.  WOW !!!

I mounted Bonnie once on the farm property and rode her all around just to enforce that bad behavior on the trail does NOT get you out of being rode.