Mr. Smokey and the Christmas Parade Part Two

Hey there, it's Smokey here. I thought I'd give you a horse perspective on this whole "parade" thing.

I had just gotten that perfect layer of mud on when Mom showed up. She got us all in for breakfast and there was a little ruckus because some of us accidently got in the same stall with Cibolo and he was all "Hey! Get out of here!"

Touchy. I was only going to take one bite and he drops a ton anyway. Fine. I had my own grain, thank you very much Mr. Alpha Male.

I figured something was up because all kinds of people started to show up and grab brushes.

Take if from me. If you have more than one person show up with brushes early in the morning it can only mean one thing. Parade.

I decided I better chow down because these parade things take a lot out of a guy. Before I knew it Mom was at it with the mane decorating. If there was any doubt before that was the final sign. Ribbons = parades.

Course all my stuff was pretty low key. Nice red blanket, a couple of ribbon in the mane that I figured I'd shake off at the first opportunity. Mom gave up on things on my head when I sent stuff airborne last year.

But you should have seen Cloud. The boy looked like a MARE! HA! He had shiny stuff, bells, and ANTLERS!

Cody got a long sparkely rope in his tail, and the new mare, Missy, she was low key too. Red, from the ranch next door, he had some big white and red thing on under his saddle. Smaller herd than last year, which was fine with me since I prefer a small herd. Less geldings to work through to make an impression on the mares, ya know.

We loaded up and the horse pullers took us around and around.

Now I don't like to speak ill of my herd mates, usually. But OMG!

First of all, Cloud was REALLY getting on all our nerves. I even had to try to bite him twice because he was a total spaz. I was like "Chill dude." and he was like "What's that!? Ahhh!!" and I was like "Where? What?" and then it was some little kid or a car and after a while I just had to roll my eyes, you know?

We walked up the street, and there were some people with those rolly horses that always creep me out. They stopped at stared at us and we weren't sure if we should stomp them and put them out of their misery, but Cody walked right by them. Cloud went by them side ways in what Mom calls "giraffe mode" which is when your head is way high so you can see them coming.

Then we got to a spot and we were supposed to stop but there was this giant grey thing and a bunch of little mini car things, and people with squashed looking hats and I didn't like it. Mom kind of figured that and hopped off to walk me over to a couple things.

I felt a little better. We did a lot of visiting, cuz in parades you have to STAND a lot even if you are a MORGAN and everyone knows it's in our breeding to be "forward" which means we don't like standing around waiting for parades to start. I got to meet all the people on the colorful trailer with the little barker. I gave the whole thing a good going over. You know they have no decent hay on those things? No wonder they all sit on it.

Mom walked me around for a while, which was good becaue there were these loud birds that kept flying over and at one point I started to wonder if they were more dangerous than the birds at the barn. They were very growly and Mom and I did the circle on the rope thing, you know, just to shake it off.

Mom also had me to some tricks for a little kid that was there and he was very impressed. I even backed, trotted, and did my fancy hip moves. Impressive stuff people like to see at a parade. We were still waiting for our turn and I was doing pretty good. I even did a shout out to some tied up horses that were pulling their own trailer, which I never have seen before. They were pretty focused, cus they didn't shout back at any of us, even though we were all "Hey! Happy Holidays Guys! What Up?!"

But it's probably a lot of work hauling one of those wagon things, so I didn't hold it against them. Mom said - Look how good they're being Smokey and I rolled my eyes. Please. They are all trussed up. What else are they gonna do? Yesh.

Then the really bad thing happened. You know how in they get those little white flappy things and its kind of unnerving to a guy? Well there was all this major noise (Mom said it was music, but I'm more of a classic rock kind of guy) and a ton of people in squashed hats and they were waving flappy things in a huge panic! That was it, we all started to make tracks - Mom had me circle, which was good, but I really thought it would be best for us to get the heck out of there. Finally the flappy people left, and other than Cloud practically running over everyone, we all got back to business.

Okay, maybe I needed to go and chill out on the parking lot for a minute, doing some more backing up and trick stuff. Just to impress, ya know.

Then it was finally our turn. For a minute there I was wondering if Mom was going to get back on. I think she was too. But her herd all gave her the thumbs up and it's not like I was all crazy like Cloud. I did kind of walk off right away, but you know it was finally time to go, you can't blame a guy.

Mom's big guy told her to breathe and she laughed and started singing, which is good, cuz you have to breathe to sing, apparently. We followed the barky dog trailer and said happy holidays to everybody. This year I stopped when Cody and Cloud did and Mom said it was amazing.

I was like, "well, duh." She probably didn't notice each time we stopped I made sure I was a little ahead. Just sending a message, you know.

I only did two circles the whole parade, cuz I got a little ahead. Last year I did so many cirlces it was like I was in the round pen. About halfway through I kind of wished I didn't have the bit, and started to shake my head. But that's not allowed in a parade, I found out. So I would dip down a little and it was not so bad. And I got rid of two ribbons on the parade route when I shook my head, which is pretty good, probably a record. Next time I think we should go bitless and show off! Ha!

Finally we were back at the trailers and everyone loaded up, cuz it was time to go.

When we got back to the barn there was a ton of good hay for all of us parade horses. Which is as it should be, Mom said.

She says I've matured. I'm thinking she has because she finally learned how to breathe, which makes it way easier. Maybe now we can go on another adventure, cuz I have this parade thing down.

Except for the flappy people. Seriously. Hope someone helped them out.


Happy Holidays!