Having Fun While Exercising

Dusty Look Alike
Red Roan Appaloosa Mare

Relaxing Trail Ride in the Country

My preferred form of exercise it horseback riding. I just love gymkhana, but not necessarily in some arena, or horse show. When it's just for fun, and the ground is safe, it's fun to do barrels, key hole, and pole-bending out out in an open field. I love riding my horse in the river, up mountains, and my horse always enjoyed it as much as I did. Once, my friend and I set up some barrels on a section of their ten acres. We were just fooling around, having fun, and my mare, Dusty was already warmed up. We took turns running the barrels, with one timing the other as we did the barrels. Mine you, we had the barrels spaced according to regulations for shows. 


Was I surprised when Doreen said Dusty had done her run in fourteen seconds. I had never before timed Dusty doing any of these things. I love watching horses do gymkhana on TV, and I don't recall ever seeing any horse do it in under fifteen seconds. I never tried doing this in competition, so maybe Doreen didn't actually time it just right, but even if she didn't, still a horse can cover a lot of ground in a second. That's why I think she clicked the timer close enough to be fairly accurate. 

Very Nice Appaloosa

When I had a life-changing and potentially life-threatening injury to my neck, (no, the accident had nothing to do with my riding horses) my Neurosurgeon said that riding horses was no longer an option for me, as if my horse spooked, and suddenly sidestepped or shied, it could easily kill me by jerking my neck, damaging the area where the brain stem is located. 


Mind you, my chosen type of riding consisted of not just sitting there, and letting the horse just lumber along, down a path someone created for local riders, but up and down mountains, and following riverbeds, to the eventual end. Sometimes, that would be when I reached some location, such as a favorite place to eat, or to picnic, or when the riverbed became so overgrown that there was no way through. 

Calf Roping Shows How It's Done On Ranches.
Branding or ear tags must be applied to identify cattle

It's been about twenty years since my accident, and I have never been able to get horseback riding or horses in general out of my system. I relate my horse addiction as skin to alcoholism, or to a druggie trying to get free of their chosen poison. 
I do enjoy walking, but am not able to walk as often as I'd like, since walking several miles is what I like to do when I can. A six-mile walk would just be getting warmed up for me. There are times, when my seventy year-old sister and I set out and actually walk a certain route, and it ends when the sun is going down.  I could happily live in the mountains, riding my horse everyday, and everyplace I needed or wanted to go.

This horse is quite similar to one I had that was half Arab and half Thoroughbred.  His name was Mecca.  I have had some of the most wonderful horses.  Most of them had reputations for being uncontrollable, but we made a great team.