Trotting, Flying, but No Loping
- April 22, 2024
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- Jan Swan Wood
Posted in: Featured, Ranch Life, Uncategorized
It was the middle of May and the broodmares were getting very close to foaling. They ran out on the
hayfield north of the house. Some of the mares were old and needed grained every day, but the closer they got to foaling, the more suspicious they became and wouldn’t come in for grain. So, they needed gathered each evening and brought in to a nice grassy trap by the corrals to get fed their grain. I’d feed hay too since they were chasing the green grass pretty hard and it wasn’t very big yet.
My Lily mare was getting some time off that year to raise a foal, and she was out with those mares. As soon as she saw my little son, who was about kindergarten age, out in the yard after school, she came
to the house to see him. He’d let her into the yard, they’d have a nice reunion, and I’d saddle her up with
his little saddle, which looked really small on that big mare.
Lily was a great saddle horse and super gentle, but she had a big motor in her, as she had come off the
racetrack when I bought her. Colin had ridden her a lot in the corrals and around the yard, but out in the
pasture was different deal. I was always concerned that if he got a bit of speed up, he might not be able to handle her. So, he had clear instructions to just walk or trot Lily, not lope her. I told him it was because
she had a little baby colt in her and it might hurt the baby if she went faster. He, of course, was awfully
excited about her baby and promised he’d be really careful with Lily and would not lope her, ever. He would ride her around the field for a while until he saw me out doing the barn chores, then he’d
gather the mares and bring them to the grass lot where I’d feed them. Just before chore time, I was out
doing some yard work around the house when I looked up to where he was riding her. On the north side of the hayfield were some gullies that were pretty wide and some nearly four feet deep. They were muddy, slippery gumbo and hard to cross even when dry.
Just as I looked up, I saw Lily and Colin fly over the deepest, widest of those gullies. Of course he
was out of earshot, so I couldn’t tell him to stop doing that! As I watched, he turned her and at a fast trot, jumped it again and again. Good grief!
I headed to the barn and sure enough, he saw me and went around the mares and started them to the
house, but managed to jump that gully one more time on the way. I had the grain in the tubs when he
came through the gate behind the mares and pulled up. I shut the gate, and then stopped to talk to him
about what he’d been doing, still somewhat upset about what could have happened, as Moms tend to be.
When I was done scolding him for jumping that slippery gully, he was looking down at me, rather puzzled. I asked him if he understood why I was upset and he absolutely did not know. He said “I was
only trotting her, Mommy. I never let her lope.”
Technically, he was right. I just hadn’t given him a long enough list of DO NOTS.
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Posted in: Featured, Ranch Life, Uncategorized
About Jan Swan Wood
Jan was raised on a ranch in far western South Dakota. She grew up horseback working all descriptions of cattle, plus sheep and horses. After leaving home she pursued a post-graduate study of cowboying and dayworking in Nebraska, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota....