Reactive Planning

Reactive planning…it just sounds so much better than the truth which is usually…’whoops’.  We have had horses since almost the day we rolled in here to Glory Farm, but almost all of them arrived due to ‘reactive planning‘.  The first horse was to ride, easy enough.  The second horse was to keep the first horse company and as it was a baby, it couldn’t be ridden anyway.  The third horse was so that we had two horses to ride, because it isn’t all that much fun to ride by oneself.  The first and third horses had different gaits, so one naturally went faster than the other, which made rides…still, not all that fun…reactive planning.  The second horse (now old enough) was broken and trained, but for mature (old) riders, it is still not a good match…and she needs a lot of time and attention…just like young children…so My Loving Spouse has been on a hunt to find or trade a great young horse for a good older horse…and it seems he has done it.Our sweet curious Dixie should have a fuller life with all the joys a good horse can bring as we now have another old boy with a delightful temperament.  This is what found me spending 2 hours of the afternoon standing in the yard holding this big boy for the fairer.  The sky was unbelievably blue with puffy white clouds and the wind was just a breeze…it was a gorgeous day.His feet were a mess and long over due for a trim, so Our Favorite Farrier had his work cut out for him…trimming, clipping, shaping shoes……and then…ta da…the ultimate pedicure!Words of horse buying wisdom from My Loving Spouse…

‘Never buy a horse named, Killer’

…so ending up with a horse named ‘Speedy’ at our age…reactive planning…horses are not like dogs and don’t really come to their name anyway…so we just change the name…

‘Big Red’…’Big Jake’…’Rusty’…and then My Loving Spouse came home from work and saw the fading sun shinning on his big red boy and it was beautiful, so his name, ‘Sundance’.  We are so hopping our Reactive Planning is at an end and that we finally have two horses to ride on what we hope is many a happy trail!