One for the Horses

What a sense of relief to have my home to myself again. After a good night's sleep without Slum's snoring or stomping to the bathroom I feel renewed. I was still a frenetic ball of angry energy yesterday though. The good news is, I took it out on someone who really deserved it.

There is a "trainer" at my barn who is notorious for abusing horses. I used to ride with him a little bit until I saw his barbaric methods in action. Since then he's been on my shit list.

Yesterday he was at the barn running the crap out of a client's horse, hitting it with the lunge whip even though the horse was moving as he'd asked. The owner of the horse doesn't seem to care, so there isn't much I can do. However, he does not board a horse at the stable so he has no right to take the arena from paying boarders.

I was standing with my horse waiting. He stopped running the horse, sat on the rail and began to instruct a rider in the back arena - another poor soul that doesn't know any better. He knew I was waiting to get in the arena.

"Paco, are you finished in the arena, because I need to use it," I said as nicely as I could muster.

"No. I'm going to ride the horse now."

"Well, you don't even board here, so you need to get out," I said a little less nicely.

"Don't try to push me around."

Oh no you didn't. He had no idea that I was a walking pressure cooker about to explode after a 7 days with Slum.

I walked closer to the arena and he stepped off the rail and faced the riding ring in the back.

"You know you are a piece of shit that has been banned from every barn in this town and except this one... "

He just kept staring at the back arena, but was no longer instructing. Then he walked towards his horse and tried to mount it but every time he tried to put his foot in the stirrup the horse would move.

"Whoa! Whoa!" But the horse kept moving.

"Yea, you're a really great trainer, Paco!" I antagonized. "He doesn't trust you!! I wouldn't trust you either if you chased me around with a whip for an hour!"

I decided I should quit while I was ahead and went to complain to management about him. The barn manager came out and told him something in Spanish. From the sound of it Paco wasn't very happy because he was raising his voice and yakking really fast in Spanish. God! I wish my Spanish was better!

But he got out. I was still a live wire, so I went for a short ride to calm my nerves.

Slum left me in a negative state, but at least I was able to dump it on a piece of crap horse abuser. It was long over due.

Hmm. What will today bring...