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[RC] Mustang Fun - Smith, Dave

I don’t know what else to call it, but when I let my two mustangs into the round pen each morning, they sure look to me like they’re having fun.  On weekend mornings, my wife and I usually  grab a couple cups of coffee, lawn chairs and set up outside the round pen, anxious for the show to begin  Then I open the gate from the stable area and let Hermano, 5; and Diego, 4, into the round pen.  The first thing they do is paw the ground looking for that very special place to roll.  Once thoroughly dusted with sand, they rise as if on cue, shake for a half minute and begin nosing each other.  Soon the nosing turns to rearing and the two go up at each other as if in fight.  If they’re wearing fly masks, now is the time to grab and pull (we go through about four fly masks per horse per fly season.)  Then Hermano, the boss mustang, begins to chase Diego, quickly transitioning from a trot to a canter and then full out gallop as the two race around the round pen throwing great clods of sandy dirt behind them.  This swirling chase is almost always punctuated by high, athletic leaps, usually accompanied by head turns and tosses, which almost always generates a loud passage of intestinal gas.  We call this phase “flying farts.”  This will often go on for 10 even 15 minutes with each horse trading places as the “chaser” and “chasee”.  In the summer, the round pen is transformed into a dust-devil if I don’t water it down before the show opens.  Minuet, our 10-month old Arab filly, wisely chooses to stay out of the melee.  Otherwise the two geldings will chase her.  But since she’s a Polish Arab, bred to race, they haven’t caught her yet.  Finally, the horses settle down, often quite literally, lying on their sides waiting for me to open the gate into one of the pastures.  I guess some people might say horses don’t have fun in the way humans do.  I disagree.  I just wish I was fast and athletic enough to join them in their morning ritual.