The Busy Blogger

Mostly I liked this title because of the alliteration, and I am a huge alliteration fan.  I also like palindromes.  Like my name.  It’s a palindrome which always made me feel cool growing up.  There’s really not much that can be more nerdy (nerdier?) than thinking you’re cool because your name is a palindrome. 

Back to task….

I haven’t blogged in exactly a week(!!) because this working rider has been more working, less rider, and even much less blogger due to that job that pays the bills requiring a lot of my time. 

Sigh.

So, what has happened in a week? 

Well, I am happy to report that pufferfish went back to his ocean, and a normal leg has returned in its place.  We had a lovely ride with a few small jumps on Friday, a nice hack on Saturday, and a GREAT lesson on Sunday. 

I mentioned our hack on Saturday was “nice.” Nice was the only word I could come up with as although a majority of it was actually quite good, there was another 10% where the drama was so…dramatic, it deserves a story of its own. 

The arena at my barn backs up to a small paddock where the barn owner turns out her horses as an alternate to the larger pastures.  On Saturday she had turned out her rusty trusty retired jumper with the small pony/mini named Jitters.

 

As you can see Jitters is just about the cutest bug in a rug you could ever imagine. The Rusty Trusty Retired Jumper (RTRJ) has been turned out with him consistently for over a year.  For whatever equine reason, on Saturday, RTRJ decided that Jitters was the bane of all evil and MUST. DIE. NOW. 

Literally during the middle of my hack I look up and RTRJ is trying to kill the little pony, chasing him, cornering him, kicking at him, and going to the extent of picking him up with his mouth and tossing him to the ground like a play thing.  Little Jitters was squealing at the top of his little lungs.  He sounded more like a little pig and less like a little pony.   As you can imagine, my panic ensued, and I started yelling at RTRJ to DROP THE PONY from atop DC’s back.  I jumped off of DC and with flailing arms and lots of yelling tried to save the pony from afar. 

DC  was not as impressed with this display as I was hoping RTRJ would be, and proceeded to run quickly backwards in order to escape the crazed person who was formally his perfectly normal rider.  I tried to maintain my hold on DC while still yelling at RTRJ.  As you can imagine this did not go well.  Quickly the situation turned from panic to pretty much dire as RTRJ was still trying to kill the pony, and now DC had escaped and was RUNNING FOR HIS LIFE around the farm property, bridle, saddle, and all. 

At that moment I had to make a decision; rescue my horse, or rescue the pony.  Given that the property is fully fenced, and that there isn’t anything of immediate danger, I decided running for the pony was the way to go.  As I saw my horse sprinting with tail straight up in full arab mode (that’s hot) away from the arena out of the corner of my eye, I went and caught RTRJ and put him back in his stall safely away from Jitters. 

Another rider at my barn came running over to see what all of the fuss was about, and I asked if she might be willing to go catch the wild running willie beast of a DC for me so I could check out the pony.  Although shaken, in a fair amount of shock, and with a few terrible bite marks on his back from being picked up and shook like a dog toy several times in a row, Jitters is a tough little thing and ended up being fine.  DC, too ended up in fine form, and somehow didn’t even manage to break my bridle or reins during a full-fledged 15 minute gallop around the farm. 

I ended my day with a little trotting around the ring just to settle the nerves (more mine than his), and said a little thankful prayer that things turned out just fine for all involved. 

When I say I have adventures, I seem to mean it.