The Big Guy

*first let me apologize for the poor quality pics, 

I just had my phone with me* 

As of Monday (yeah, Monday... I'm a bit late posting lol) 

Anyway, as of Monday I've now put at least one ride on each of the four saddle broke horses this year.  That's not a lot of riding, but considering winter just seemed to finally end that's not too terribly bad.

Monday was Smudge's turn and since I've added all the horses to my "stable" on my phone I weight taped him before I rode.  Holy smokes he is fat errr big.
The pic below doesn't do his size justice.  And no, I'm not telling you how much the tape said he weighed, but I will say that my guess was DAMN close! 

I joke that he looks like a war horse.  In some ways he does, he'd probably look great as a mount for those people that role play medieval times (you know, whatchamacallit... Society for Creative Anachronism?  Is that what I'm looking for?)

Smudgers was pretty good considering he hasn't been ridden in a.g.e.s. but he does need a few more tune up rides before he can resume being 'the company horse'.  And from the sounds of it he is going to be in demand a bit this summer :)  He's a pretty nice ride, with his broad back and hip swinging walk you sure feel safe up there.  His trot is nice and he's got a great, smooth lope too.  But because he's youngish and had all that time off he's also a bit lazy, opinionated and stubborn.  Which means that he can get pretty strong when he decides he wants to head for the gate.  Or try trotting off when you want to walk.  And with that big, thick neck he takes some muscle to convince he needs to listen to the wimpy human on his back lol

Post ride pic above, he's looking all innocent, and nowhere near as fat as he really is lol. 

Little did he know he was about to be introduced to Mr. Water Hose to spray down his sweat marks and, more importantly, to wash his tail. 
Ugh, his poor tail.  It was sooo gross.  It was so stained it was almost tobacco juice brown/yellow.  Ick!!  Thanks to some nice "white horse" purple shampoo it is, for the most part, back to silver.
Smudge was great for the tail washing, however when it came time to spray his body down he was a bit of a brat.  Until my friend Janelle held some cookies, the way to Smudge's heart is definitely his stomach! 
I really think that he's never been hosed down before.  Considering his past as a ranch horse that's not too shocking.

After Smudge was hosed off I tied him to a fence post to dry off and looked up in time to see the glares.  It was pretty funny.  This is not the clearest pic but Voodoo is on the right, you can see the top of Lefta's head & her ears to the left and just in front of her, with his face squeezed in the gap of a missing fence board is George.  You could feel the waves of jealous coming from the peanut gallery lol

I'm going to try to get a decent pic of Smudge to share with y'all.  Then you could all take turns guessing his weight... maybe a contest is in order.  Hmm.... stayed tuned!