Kentucky Horse Park and other such fiddlefaddle© Renee Landkamer
Oct 6, 2000
Well, the reason this article is late is because I went out east *grin*. I finally have a legitimate excuse. Ah well. On the way back, we stopped at Kentucky Horse Park. While it was interesting and all, I can't say much for it. They do seem to take very good care of the non-riding horses and the draft horses. But I went on the horseback trail ride. The leader didn't seem to care much for what the horses were like or what they were doing. I was on a horse named Duke, a lovely little part Morgan gelding. Duke doesn't walk very quickly, as I found out within a minute of getting on. That didn't bother me a bit. After all, he is a nice horse, not misbehaving a bit. But the other horses went a bit faster than Duke. The leader (Heather) called to speed Duke up. I tried to get him to walk faster, but he broke into a bit of a trot, which he kept up until he was in his place. I tried to keep him from going too fast, because this was a walk-only ride, and I didn't think it would be proper for me to be the only one trotting (but his trot was so nice!). Anyway, the other riders were a mom (riding 30+ years), a son (riding 5 months), and a daughter (riding 5 years). The mom asked if they could trot a bit, and Heather replied "Nope, this is a walking only ride." The mom said "All right," and nothing more was said. The girl's horse stopped for a bathroom break, and in moment or two, she trotted back up to the rest. Heather turned around and snapped "If she does that again, she'll have to get off and walk!" The mom said that the horse had stopped to go to the bathroom, and Heather said "Make the horse keep walking, and don't let it happen again!" I was burning to say "Let the horse stop and go to the bathroom! It's bad enough he has do it in the middle of the trail, where he will have to walk again and again and again," but I held my tongue (as I usually do, thank goodness). At the end of the ride, we all (excluding Heather), after letting our horses have a drink, greeted all the horses (except Heather's, who was as insociable as it's rider). I noticed that the girl's horse (Sequel) had cracked hooves. I have seen horses that aren't exactly well cared for, and ones that are taken meticulous care of before, and none of them had hooves cracked like that. They were cracked from dryness, lack of proper nutrients, THAT sort of cracked. And these were deep cracks, not just slight crevices. *growls*
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