My horse Rooster and I had a great time at Linda Black's "Softer Side of Horsemanship" clinic this weekend at Cross 9 Ranch. I arrived on Friday afternoon along with my friend Susan. We quickly found ourselves helping out with farm chores, and soon after that, I stumbled upon the fodder for this blog post.

We were asked to move several horses to different pastures and to bring one horse back to the barn. No problem. With a few decades of horse experience between us, certainly we're over-qualified for leading around a few horses. We sent the first group of horses to their new locations without a hitch.

The original instructions for the second group of horses was that we were to put the mares that were in the paddock on the side of the barn in another larger pasture. We were supposed to leave Roy, the Palomino gelding, in that lot. We headed outside and looked at the three horses there. I knew all but one: CJ, Dolly, and a Palomino horse. I didn't think the Palomino was Roy, and I asked Susan, "Is that a gelding?" She said yes, so I figured it'd just been a while since I saw these horses (it had been since the fall, at least).

We delivered the two mares we knew and checked in again to see if there was anything else we could help with. We were asked why we didn't move the Palomino horse.

"Isn't that Roy," we both asked. Nope. The horse we left in the paddock was a mare. Roy is a gelding. Someone else already took care of him.

When I asked her about the gelding, Susan thought I asked whether Roy was a gelding, not whether that horse in the paddock was a gelding. How simple is that miscommunication? I thought I was clear in my question; but she gave me the answer to the question she thought I was asking. It's amazing how many times communication glitches like that happen with our horses, our customers, and our family and friends.

The good thing about horses, family, and friends is they (most) always forgive you; customers don't always forgive.