RAC (Ride-A-Curly) Adventure Blog

Got Billy out for a ride last night that turned out to be quite a lesson in bravery for me! I cannot tell you how many times I wanted to turn him around and go right home. But, my new motto is to conquer fear so I pressed on. Within 10 minutes of the ride, Billy started to test me by bracing on the bit and refusing to go the way I wanted him to - just like old times! All I could think was "what is the cause of this???" I simply wanted him to turn left and he was insisting on pulling to the right. I was so nervous that I let him get away with it twice. But, the third time I grabbed the reins, kicked him on the sides and made it very clear what I wanted him to do. And.....he went left! I felt empowered!

We did a lot of stopping and backing, turning, found a few trees to go around. He just never really connected with me on the ride. Always seemed to be in la-la land. He kept ignoring my leg cues. I would put my leg on and he would move into it. Hasn't done that in a long time. I felt like I was communicating with a defiant teenager. I trotted him for quite a ways and that seemed to settle him a little.

Then.....came the sign. I mean literally THE sign.....You all remember me telling you about "The Ancient World" - the place I want to conquer by the end of the summer? Here is the sign for it. And here is the funniest part - Billy and I are clearly NOT on the same page for conquering such a challenge, but I decide "hmmmmm, wonder what he would do if I tried the Ancient World." Crazy, I know!!!!

Sooooooo, I took him the back way to the Ancient World to try and surprise him with the idea. Great thinking, huh?? hahahaha! All was fine, we were meandering up the side rode with the Ancient ruins to the right of us. I thought, maybe he is not going to mind and took a sharp turn into the area.

Well, this is as close as we got.....
It might be hard to tell from the picture, but this a giant statue of a face! Billy's ears perked up, he came to a dead stop and let out a little snort. I thought "ok, not today" hahahaha!!!!! I did a couple circles with him there and we headed on back to the trail. Rode about another mile in through the woods and headed home on the dirt rode.

If it wasn't bad enought that I was already having issues, a guy came barrelling down the dirt rode doing about 60 and that completely put Billy over the edge! He pretty much told me he was done and was going home! And, I agreed, but realized that I had to make something good out of this and that I needed to calm down.

So, I reached in my pocket and turned on my Ipod. You will NEVER guess what song came on......MC Hammer "Can't Touch This". All I could do was laugh and groove in my saddle! I had my arms flapping, shoulders bopping. It was a great ending to a stressful ride! Billy seemed to like the Hammer too! :-)