Tuesday, August 12, 2008

I've invented a new emergency dismount style. I call it the Superman.

... of course, you need to have the complete cooperation of Dobbin, as it requires that s/he trips and flips over onto his/her back.

And in the immortal words of some LOLCat or another, "... it's not so great, akshully."

Yesterday, I went over to the barn around 3:45. I was going to groom and ride Tico and groom Dusty.

I was feeling a bit lazy though, so I decided to ride him in his english snaffle and the bareback pad (I also add an english saddlepad underneath it, not that that really matters).

So... as I'm grooming him on the crossties, the barn girl threw his supper hay into his stall (they feed hay pretty early there).

Mr Piglet was not pleased. Although he obviously has not missed a meal in quite a few years, he *hates* when I don't let him dive right in and start noshing if it's *there*, waiting for him.

Too bad, fatarse. :)

So, I jumped on him and started riding in the indoor. Weather around here has been rainy, mixed with downpours, thunder, lightning and sprinkles. Not a great summer, all in all.

This indoor has a side door from which you can look directly at Tico's stall. Every time we were near to it, it called to him... "Hay!! Hay!! The Hay is in your stall, come, eat!!!"

So... walk... a bit of a trot... and Every Time we came around to the door that faces his stall there was bulging, a little hissy fit and general brat behavior. I ignored it. We went both directions, then I asked for a canter.

Again, at the corners, some brat behavior, and some pitching forward like he was thinking about throwing in a buck, Tico style (Tico's bucks are not particularly deadly), but I caught him up and made him move forward.

We went his "good" direction first, to the right; then tracked to the left (so we were looking straight at his stall on that one corner again).

I got the correct lead out of him, but he was being spazzy and really leaning on the reins. We came around the corner, and he tripped. A BIG trip. He went down on his knees, and I went flying over his head and did a modified face-plant - more horizontal than directly on my head, hence the "Superman" - and I kind of skidded to a stop.

During my flight, I was aware of a lot of commotion behind me. I tucked up my legs and turned to look.

About 3 feet away from my face, there was a fat gray horse butt with legs flailing in the air. He'd done a face plant himself, and flipped all the way over onto his back.

I got up fast: I was a bit concerned about surviving all that, only to be kicked in the head by flailing hooves which looked a lot closer than 3 feet away - and may actually have been, come to think of it. Tico got up pretty fast too, once he finished flailing. His face was coated in sand, the bareback pad was coated, his butt was coated. There was sand in his eyes and in his ears. As for me - I looked like I'd been rolling around in the dirt - pretty much the same as he did, when you come to think of it.

At first he seemed to be favoring his right hind a bit, and he did the "pain" face once. I checked him over - nothing broken, no heat - and walked him off to the aisle. He was a bit tentative but no real limping. He mostly looked a bit abashed.

I called the vet. Again. Between Dusty and Tico he probably is starting to feel like I'm stalking him. Anyway, after I told him what happened, he asked me "What's he doing now?"

"He's just standing here."

The vet must think I'm a complete friggin' idiot.

Anyway, he said to give him some bute, but to not be too surprised if he's ok - that horses sometimes take amazing falls without hurting themselves. Meanwhile, he just said keep an eye on him.

So, aside from a skinned elbow, a slightly twisted knee and a sore neck, I'm ok. I'll be checking on Tico this evening to see how he's doing.


Tico's butt print
That's the buttprint Mr. BigButt left behind

2 comments:

dingo said...

Love the blog!
I wanted to be the first to leave a comment.

Congratulations on surviving the fall...both of you!

Amy said...

Umm... LMFAO that's the best post I've read anywhere in a while! Just the title is epic! Adding you to my favorites... Thanks for posting to Mouthy Mondays!