A Little Excitement

The Hay Field  (last month)

Early this morning I got a wake – up call from my daughter yelling to me to get dressed quick (I believe the direct quote was "Hey, put some pants on!  We have a horse emergency!")  Seems a few of the horses were, for some mysterious reason, loose in the hay field behind our house.  She was just getting up to see if they had come up for breakfast and looked out the window to see three majestic horses galloping across the hay field behind the house, tails up and heading for the road.  Not a minute later our neighbor down the road called to tell us her daughter had spotted them running towards their farm. 

My daughter threw on a coat, her boots and a baseball cap and ran out the door, grabbed a bucket of grain and some lead ropes and headed out across the field towards them.  I got in the car and backed to the end of the driveway.  If they spooked I would try to block the road and keep them from continuing on to the much busier road that intersects ours.  Luckily, the horses only crossed the quiet back road to our neighbor's where they were greeted with a tub of feed from her at the end of her driveway.  She stood with them until my daughter arrived, which was very kind, especially considering she was already dressed for church and the three big, crazy dingbats were all swarming around her fighting over the grain.  Our neighbors are the best! 

My daughter, only having two hands for leading, had only grabbed two lead ropes, so she threw them over Nate and Blue and Donnie followed behind.  Donnie is a Nervous Nellie and a follower.  It was still a little on the dark side so cars coming up the road had their lights on which spooked Nate a tad but he was controllable.  What I like about our neighborhood is that all the cars slowed down and some stopped to ask if she needed help with the horses.  If the drivers weren’t savvy as they were passing the horses it could have gotten ugly.  So a disaster was averted because of good neighbors and sensible drivers as my daughter led Moe, Larry and Curly home from their morning adventure.

Another neighbor who helps us out around the farm took his truck around the fence line without being asked and found their escape route.  He knows the horses well and told us that it was definitely Blue who led the pack.  Seems “he who knows how to open gates” (that’s his Native American name) fiddled with the gate up on the hill by the dressage arena until he opened the latch and pushed it open. Then led Nate and Donnie through the twisting trails onto the hay/corn field behind us. While our neighbor was up there he tied the gate shut.  He and his son were out hunting deer this morning so it was not hard to follow the trail through the frost to the gate. 

Of course, this set the rest of the herd galloping up to the barn to tattle on the Three Stooges.  We promptly locked them all in the catch pen.  Mellon got his medicine and I was able to catch Dusty for a ride.  They have been staying out all week because the inside of the barn was being varnished.  I was hoping they would come up this morning so I wouldn’t have to trek out to the back field to catch her.  So I guess one good thing came out of the morning romp.  Then again, I could do without the drama and could use the exercise walking around trying to cajole Dusty to come with me.  Never a dull moment around here.  

Until next time

Quote for Today

How do you catch a loose horse? Make a noise like a carrot.     - British Cavalry joke

Indoor Antics

" Blue "

We’ve still got snow covering the paddocks and the horses haven’t left the catch pen for months. It’s their decision, but it seems they prefer to stand around and eat out of the hay nets.  Although… I did notice one set of hoof prints leading to the next paddock and a pile of manure by that pasture’s waterer.  My guess is the herd sent out a scout to reconnoiter and report back whether there was any grass poking through the snow yet.  If I had to make an educated guess, I’d pick Blue as the scout since he is our resident adventurer and a highly motivated grazer.

This morning we decided that, since the horses were so bored and the weather was decent--if a slight bit rainy, we’d start getting the herd in shape with some longeing. Blue and Grady were first up for some walk and trot on the longe.  Grady behaved himself and Blue, who is the calmest laziest horse on the property, was a wild man.  I asked him to “walk on” and he did so beautifully for about three complete circles and then turned into a squealing, bucking, cantering bronco.  Blue’s good training and personality brought him right back when asked but we repeated this scenario five more times. He was also setting Grady off. 

At this point we decided it would be a better idea to turn them loose and let them have some fun.  We weren’t getting anything accomplished with their pent up energy from months of standing around. We took them by two’s just like Noah’s Ark to the indoor. Here are the results from the horse show they put on:

•        Mellon wins the blue ribbon for most rolls in one day, and he did jump a cavelletti.

•        Dusty wins the red for not galloping around but trotting at a controlled pace, although she did toss her head quite a bit to show she’s still a wild pony. She also walked over a cavelletti to show the others how it was done properly.

•        Grady garnered the yellow for best floating canter.

•        Donnie received the white for staying out of Nate’s way, trying really hard to not get too carried away, and being a cutie in general.

•         Blue took home the pink because he was squealing like a little girl and he looked very handsome doing an extended trot.

•         Nate wins the green for most obnoxious behavior and flat out galloping, and he left the most manure to be picked up.

•         Sami was awarded the purple because he refused a jump (he came to a sliding stop in front of a cavelletti--very impressive, but still a refusal) and he tried to bite Mellon on the butt while he was down rolling (not very sportsmanlike, I’m afraid.)  Sorry, can’t make any exceptions for cuteness.  He’ll just have to be happy with last place this time.

So ends our eventful morning.  I’ll be dragging the ring to get the footing in shape again.  Dusty and I have a riding date later this afternoon.

Until next time

Quote for Today

A little horseplay... the way best to enjoy any day!

" Self Preservation "

“Self Preservation”

 

' Lifeguard '

 

It occurred to me recently that my horses have absolutely no natural instinct for self-preservation.  I’m wondering what everyone else thinks about their horse’s personalities and whether or not their horses could survive if turned out in the wild.

The reason why this particular subject came to mind: I was about to drag the arena in the back field a few days ago, when I got out of the Kubota to open the gate, in the blink of an eye Nate had walked onto our chain harrow (luckily the tines were pointed down) and had to have all four hooves extricated; While extricating Nate and shooing him away, Grady thought the whole thing looked like a good idea and wedged both his front feet in the drag as well; Blue was standing in front of the hood staring me down and wouldn’t move even though I blew the horn at him; Donnie was checking out the bed in the back and had found an old halter and a rusty horseshoe with nails we had just picked up in the paddock to play with.  I swear it’s like living with a bunch of five year olds.

As I thought back over the years, many more instances of recklessness or downright stupidity came to mind, these are by no means all of their antics just a few of my favorites:

• There was the time when Blue and Erik took a run across the half frozen pond on the way in from turnout. Hence, the fencing around the pond.

• When Lifeguard picked the lock on the gate and led the entire herd on a merry gallop across the road through the neighbor’s sod farm, and tore it up. Although he's no longer with us he still has the ability to conjure up fond memories.

• When we live on Long Island, my daughter used to take the horses on a short walk to Long Island Sound.  Her friend one day came along and ponied her young OTTB Squiggy to the beach for the first time.  Although he had never seen so much as a big puddle, he got loose and ran off, making a bee-line straight into the oncoming waves of the Sound and kept on going until he fell off a ledge some distance out and disappeared under the water entirely, only to emerge a while later, shaken and disoriented.  But that didn’t stop him - he kept swimming out for a while until they rode further up the beach to lure him back.  He eventually turned around and got himself out of the water, only to gallop past the other horses up the beach and off into the distance.

• Down by the Sound again, Erik spooked and dove into a swamp - presumably for cover? - got stuck and dumped my daughter in the reeds and mud.  Luckily she didn’t let go of the reins and he dragged her for quite a ways, running next to him before she could stop him.  Where did he think he was going?  Or was he trying to outrun the horrifying “Swamp Thing” running beside him?

• Blue one day got loose and, of all the places he could have wandered, we found him standing happily in the dumpster atop a mountain of manure surveying his kingdom.

• Nate’s done so many off-the-wall things it’s hard to list them all , but my favorite would definitely have to be the time in Scotland when my daughter was taking a hotel group trail ride out.  Nate saw giant red cows with horns and, fleeing for his life, forgot to look behind him and backed up so quickly he ran into a bank and fell over backwards. 

 Nate is the main reason why any improvement we do on the farm starts with the question, “how could Nate hurt himself with this and how can it be prevented”?  Although, despite our best efforts, we’re convinced he could even hurt himself in a padded stall....  So I guess that our domesticated horses probably couldn’t take care of themselves if released into the wild and left to their own devices. How about yours?

Until next time

Quote for Today

 Leave a horse's gate unfastened and he'll be knocking on your window in the night.