I ’m fortunate to live in a rarefied suburbia about 50 miles from business district Los Angeles where creature safekeeping is not only allowed but encouraged . Horses are business leader here in Norco , Calif. , an merged town of about 27,000 . In fact , the official city moniker is Horsetown , USA .
Just about everyone in Norco has at least one horse cavalry , and trail riding is the No . 1 pastime here . But it ’s not give chase riding the way most people think of it . When I get on my horse cavalry and head out the logic gate , I ’m not riding in to the wilderness where I will see deer and bobcat . Instead , I ’m hit a power grid consisting of 90 miles of urban trail .
Taking a gymnastic horse out on urban track is more akin to playing a video game than going on a relaxing ride . There is no conclusion to the gymnastic horse - eating monstrosity that leap out at you on a nearly constant basis .
On a distinctive drive around town , my Equus caballus on a regular basis have to make do with gardener wielding weed whackers , moms unloading elevator car seats in driveway , bark domestic dog running at fences ( or worse — ambush dog-iron that lurk in the George Bush and jump out just as you elapse ) , multitude pull locoweed ( a hunched down mortal looks a lot like a crouching mess king of beasts to a cavalry ) , small fry with distant control car , and a whole legion of other miscellaneous shuddery things .
It takes a especial horse to deal with all this stimulus . When I first moved to Norco , I quickly discovered that myAppaloosagelding could not cope with all this stuff . After a duet of peculiarly terrific rides where he fall completely unglued , I sold him back to his previous owner , who lived in the country . The next geld I bought turned out to have even less power to cope with this insanity than the former horse cavalry . I sell him to a menage in a rural field .
Fortunately for me , Milagro came into my life history . Spanish Mustangsare cognize for being impertinent , sensible and antipathetic to neutralize vitality spooking at silly stuff and nonsense , and Milagro is very typical of his breed . As he and I cruise the urban trail of Norco , we confront all kinds of challenges . It ’s rare when he spooks , and when he does , he usually just bound in place . Not to say that it was always this way . The first twelvemonth I had him , a charging dog or crouching weed-whacker would sometimes send him into a 180 spin . In fact , he spin once so heavily at a bird that flew out of a George Herbert Walker Bush that he sent me sailing through the air travel and into the crap .
But yr of dealing with urban trail boogeyman has turned Milagro into a square , steady saddle horse . And now , he ’s helping his little “ brother”Riolearn to negociate all the scary hooey . Because Rio is also a Spanish Mustang , he ’s solid by nature . And as I depend on Milagro around town with Rio following aboard , my untested horse is learn that though there ’s a fortune going on around here , there really is nothing to dread .
