Watch out for that tree!

The best therapy for barn drama is to RIDE! Got the hell out of the parking lot and Boy, did we RIDE. Our small group of 4 with one young gun in tow. We blazed a few trails and set a good pace to blow out some cobwebs and work off a little mental steam. For some strange reason my big grey beast really worried one very nice looking Warmblood we kept crossing paths with. Dancing on their horses part was cause for a commotion moment for my horse. The young’n of the pack kept finding it great fun to kick up his heels whenever we climbed a hill worthy of a little effort on the horses part. So that was a lively crash and thunder from behind. Poor Rocket just knew something back there was reason enough and was on high alert, ready at any moment to make the grand escape in case I wasn’t watching. We were trotting along (I forget his trot makes everybody else canter) at a good pace on the way back to home base when I guess someone did not communicate to the youngster he should have followed the horse leading him and the leader went to right of a tree and he went left. This caused a parting of the ways and all I could hear amongst the great commotion was "It’s OK," "Whoa!" As I turned the Rocket to face the horse monster we got buzzed by a loose Jr. horse. Rocket and I did a lovely Piaffe in place and Jr. stopped about 15 feet away. Heart rates back to normal, gather up the escapee. I thought WE (Rocket & Centara) were going to take a break at the edge of the field while “others” ran around…before I knew it Centara was off at a nice canter and poor Rocket was feeling left out. So, off we went to follow. He was okay as long as he could see her in the distance and we did nice collected work while following. He really did need to rest some.. as we took a shortcut through the middle of the field he was so funny when the cantering horses crossed the opening ….there they are! All in all we had a great time and it was great therapy.