H is for Horse

Last week I had the pleasure of discussing one of my favorite things...horses. Not that I know too much or have a lot of experience with them, but what I do know I love. Darby, my student recruiter at work, has a lot of experience with horses and shares my passion. Although I think hers is a little more qualified. She has ridden for several years and used to have an instructor and everything. You know you are so jealous of her. After our talk today she said that she decided they were going to go riding this weekend, all that horse talk made her crave it. I wish I had a stable to go to when my horse urge hit. I've only had a few experiences riding horses. All but one have been the whole ride in line and sway side to side thing. You know what I'm talking about...

My latest horse excursion was while Jon and I were in Jamaica. My horse was named Viceroy and it was, of course, the ugly one. Here is a picture of Jon and his horse Cornstick and me and Viceroy. (please note that Jamaican horses are very small, I was worried they couldn't carry us the whole way! Jon is as big as Cornstick!)



Another not so good surprise was that Viceroy was also a very competitive horse. He was constantly trying to move to the front of the pack, but the horse in front of us kept cutting us off. There were a couple little tiffs full of biting and kicking, and that was even with the guide... I must say I was a little worried about riding up a mountain on an angry bitting horse. But, this was also when I learned to appreciate horses even more! It was so funny to see their personalities come out! In their little horse world being at the front of the pack is the most important thing, and I'm glad that Viceroy wanted us to be a leader. I also think that Viceroy had some kinda of complex because he knew he wasn't a pretty horse, so he wanted to make up for it by being the fastest. I hope it wasn't because he heard me say he was ugly :(

All that to say that I'm super jealous of Darby and her horse experience. However, this only aids in my determination to have horses on a ranch some day!