Flashback!

I stole some time at the barn, and was overly disappointed when it started to thunder as we were bringing horses in for the night. I actually had time, but the cursed weather foiled my plan to take the mare for a spin. I was going to anyways, since I didn't see any actual lightining, but B said "Do you really want to be attached to a very tall object in a very flat field?"... sigh. She's always right.

So instead, in true fashion when four horse women get together, the stories started flying about our funny horse moments, like when Thoroughbred mares get attacked by crime tape and pool noodles, and our lovely young horses get spooked by wayward hunt caps. I believe B's husband calls it 'nattering'.

It reminded me of a time when I lived in Hawai'i...and I had to share, as the memory of it had me laughing all the way home.

The place that I rode had a beautiful set up. You can check them out here. My best friend Sam and I used to hack up to the big field (or 'Uptop') and play around with our ponies often. They offered some cross country jumps, and a huge half-mile track we used to condition. Half way around the track was a turn off to go back down to the barn.

We decided, during one bareback adventure, that it would be fun to gallop the ponies around the track.

Sam and her pony went first. They got to the 'y' in the track and I could see Sam desperatly pulling her pony's head to the left, to continue around the track, but the pony was popping her shoulder to the right. They didn't even miss a beat before that pony dropped her shoulder and spun. Sam shot like an arrow head first over her shoulder and was deposited less than gracefully, face first, into the very large manure pile. The pony, sensing freedom, shot for home, screaming like a banshee the entire time.

I was laughing like a loon at this point, and the pony that I was on decided that it would be preferrable to also go home. Didn't that little devil grab the bit in her teeth and take off like a shot! I was pully reining with all my might, but having been unseated when pony blasted off, it was all I could do to stay on. We got to the 'y' and I don't think that I even had an option. My pony was going home regardless of if I was with her or not. I made one last attempt to pull her up, and with a very shrill pony scream she put her head down and bucked as hard as ever she could.

I was deposited, just as gracefully, into the manure pile next to Sam while my pony also made a bid for home.

After extracting ourselves from the pile, throwing minor fits, and de-pooping we saw Sam's Dad walking up the trail, ponies in hand, with a huge smile on his face. The smile broke into bouts of hysteria when he realized just what had happened. The laughter was contagious, and he legged us back up onto our poines so we could continue the ride.

I guess it wasn't exactly what the ponies had in mind, as we finished our circle around the track with two ponies throwing very pony-style fits complete with screams, bucking, spinning, and rearing.  

We survived however, and when we got back to home base we vowed to always start going away from the 'y'. I think that the amount of manure that we extracted from our hair, helmets, socks, bras, underwear, and between our teeth was record setting. We had a small moutain of it on the floor of the tack room.

Never argue with a pony!