Yesterday was nice and sunny, so I thought I'd go play with the pony again in the late afternoon. I got out there, brought all my equipment out to the riding ring so I could get her ready there, and then spent a while brushing her with the shedding blade, pulling her mane a little more, picking her feet, etc. She wasn't quite as chilled out as she had been last time, but she was pretty good.
There were some bangs and pops coming from the woods that I assumed were hunters out after the many many wild turkeys in the area. There was one huge BOOM! noise though that I couldn't identify. The pony was noticing the noises, but didn't seem too bothered.
At one point though, I could tell she was definitely noticing something in the bushes. And then abruptly she spooked and pulled back and spun around. I was trying to get around behind her at the time but luckily I was fine. The source of the big scare? Just one of the property owners coming out of the woods at a slow walk. Seriously. Sigh. I hope this isn't evidence of how spooky she could be under saddle.
So... This is where things stop being even remotely normal. I hadn't thought to bring lunging equipment out to the ring with me, so I though I'd just *try* moving her around freely in the ring before I tacked her up. I figured either it would work or it wouldn't. Well... She started out okay -- a bit silly and fast and bucky, but I figured she'd be okay shortly... except... there's a horse pastured right beside the ring, and she decided she'd go check her out instead of paying attention to me. Which wouldn't have been a big deal -- I would just move her out of that corner -- except that the horse charged the fence at her, which scared her and sent her running -- clean through the fence at the side of the ring, breaking two of the big tire-rubber straps that made up the fencing there.
I had a moment's horror, then a "well that was stupid" moment, then walked over to where she had run to her buddies, grabbed a lead rope from the barn to catch her, and when I came out... There was the huge horse from next to the ring, out of nowhere, charging straight for her. What???!!!
Her fence was intact, so she had clearly JUMPED out of her paddock to chase down the pony. The two of them ran around all over the place, kicking at each other and squealing. Up the snowbank! Through the trees! In and out of the barn! On and on and around and around. I stood aside, mortified, and windmilling the lead rope whenever they started to get close.
Eventually the big one stopped, far enough away from the pony that I didn't feel like I'd end up in a bad spot, so I snapped the lead on her and put her back in her paddock. Then I went for the pony.
BUT THEN...
I hear a CRACK and look over and the big horse is charging THROUGH the fence of the paddock to come after the pony again. Great! Two busted fences in under ten minutes!! Recommence running, kicking, bucking, squealing, gravel and mud churned up everywhere...
The big horse has two bad stifles, but she sure was moving well through all THIS excitement. Eventually the pony got out of the way and sort of hid behind a shed near her paddock, waiting, and the big horse charged around snorting, up in the trees, in and out of the barn, into the manure pile...
She stopped in the middle of the manure pile by a low-hanging power line that was at just below head level for her. I would have loved to have waited until she was OUT of there, but I didn't want her clothes-lining herself. So I waded in, in rubber boots, thankfully, and snapped the lead on. Then she and I waded out way out with manure half way up our legs. I put her directly in her STALL this time, where she had some hay to distract her, then went out to find the pony.
The pony saw me and decided she would rather find her OWN way back into her paddock thank you very much. I had to slow-chase her through deep snow, around sheds, through thick thorny raspberry bushes, over a rusted old bicycle... as she had to check out the whole fence line from OUTSIDE. Finally, fiiiiinally I snapped the lead on and got her back into her paddock.
I ran up to the house and knocked and blabbered nonsense in a whole excited rush to my coach's husband trying to describe the chaos that had just occurred, at which point my coach pulled into the drive and started to walk up, carrying my crop that I had apparently dropped in the driveway on my way in.
She was great about it, assured me I didn't do anything wrong and that my safety came first no matter what stupid crap the horses got up to. Fortunately neither horse seemed to have have hurt herself despite their slippy-slidey fence-bustin' antics. The gravel outside the barn was amazingly churned up though! In the ring, you could actually see skid marks where the pony had tried last-second to stop herself from breaking through the fence. Fortunately both fence breaks would be easy repairs, and my coach shrugged it off as not big deal. She even helped me bring the pony back out and lunge her so she wouldn't get the impression that being a dingaling would get her out of work. The pony lunged really nicely and seemed to get over her adventure pretty quickly. She even started to bend and stretch really nicely!
And so I called it a day after that. No good riding a nervous green horse when your adrenaline is high and so is theirs. Better day next time, I hope!!!
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