Hazel
LeAnn posted this blog on Monday, April 25th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
It all started about a month ago when I covered a county board meeting for the newspaper. Another reporter from another newspaper asked me if I would be interested in doing some “musical riding.” A friend of hers who has dressage horses is putting together a musical riding team for a demonstration next fall.
I thought about it for, oh, a second.
“Sure,” I said. “Why not.”
And that’s how I started going out to ride Hazel.
Hazel is amazing. She is a rescue horse who was in among a herd of horses. She’d never had a thing done with her, and they started out by putting a halter in her tub of grain and then sitting back while she ate.
That was only a few years ago, and Hazel is now a calm, quiet horse who knows waaaaaaay more than I do about dressage. She does exactly what I tell her to do, even if I don’t know have the vaguest idea of what I am telling her. And when I tell her the wrong thing and we do the wrong thing, and she knows we are doing the wrong thing, she does not get upset in the least. She does what I tell her until I tell her to correct the thing that I told her was the wrong thing to do in the first place. Bless her little equine heart.
We have until October for Hazel and Karen to get me into a somewhat presentable state. For the past few weeks I have been going out twice a week to ride Hazel.
For any of my readers who live in this area of Wisconsin and think they’d like to try dressage riding, give Karen a call at Hay River Equestrian. Believe me, she has the patience of a saint and is extremely good at what she does.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Hazel and LeAnn (April 2011)
Next Blog Posting: LeAnn & Izzy – Portrait in the Barn
