Ruidoso: The Horses

I grew up riding horses.....amazingly enough, with the same two girls I went to Ruidoso with every summer. ;o) We would do lots of horseback riding back in our Ruidoso days and things seemed to hold true this time around as well. ;o) Presley A.dores animals and just loves horses.....does my heart good. I thought, for sure, she would be scared to ride on a horse! However, she ended up falling in love with it.

She loved riding the ponies

But her heart was with Duke, the huge horse! I will admit that I was a little nervous about Presley being on a horse with me. I am comfortable around horses and know how to handle them pretty well...usually ;o) but I'm not familiar with handling horses while a two year old is sitting in my lap! Duke was a gently giant, but he definitely wanted to be in charge. He was also a little irritable. If you could see his ears in this picture then you would see the irritation written all over his ears....flat as a mat on his head! lol. He kicked Joey's horse who insisted on either 1-smelling Duke's rear-end the whole time, or 2-eating everything that passed in front of his jaw. He also got irritated when I took my feet out of the stirrups and let them dangle against him while I got readjusted. He kept turning around to nip at my foot. Whenever he would turn around Presley would say, "what you doing horsey" or "why you doing that horsey." My thoughts exactly! Obviously, HE was acting more like a SHE....if you know what I mean. We had a few words and then he managed to recognize that mama bear was not havin any of his shenanigans. ;o) It was a beautiful ride and a lazy ride....perfect for when you have a little one with you, but not something I would have wanted to do had I been on a horse by myself. There's a better ride up in the mountains, but definitely not safe for little ones.

After the ride, Presley got a horsemanship certificate. ;o) I love this picture....she's so proud of herself.