Rancho Oso 2

Our morning horse ride was excellent. Anna rode “Duke,” and I was on “Dude,” who was as chill as his name. All the horses were very obedient and mellow. Even Anna, riding for the first time, had no problem turning Duke's head when he wanted to munch on some wild fennel. The horses were very good, and we had a nice, docile ride. (This was no Jamaica Bay free-for-all, with horses rolling in the sand while you were still on them, or reaching back to try to bite your legs, or running madly back to the stables when they reached a certain point.

Ahh, Jamaica Bay. Probably highly illegal by today's standards, but oh so much fun!)

Later, we were treated to a mini rodeo. The cowboys did a demo showing how they use dogs to move cattle. They used an Australian Kelpie, named Duke (I guess they like that name). Kelpie's are related to the border collie. Then they used a little Welsh pony named Sonny-Boy to show how they train horses to be "finished horses" (ones good for riding, and not too skittish). Then they showed how they evaluate young bucks for rodeos. They put a dummy on it's back and if they kick and twist a lot, they hit a release button to knock the dummy off, and hopefully the thing understands that the more he moves, the quicker the dummy gets off. The ones with good bucking potential are kept until they're big and then sold to the rodeos.