Personality Plus

That describes Tico. If they cast a new Mr. Ed, he could do it in a heartbeat.

Yeah, he's gray... but how many people remember Mr. Ed was a palomino? Was it even in color? I wouldn't know, since we didn't have a color TV until well into the 70s, I think.

Tico can be really fresh with me, I think because he knows it makes me happy. Yes, I know that sounds really demented. He's never dangerous. It's more like play.

When we're trotting around in the indoor and he tosses a little happy buck in, transitioning into a canter, it makes me grin. When he expresses an opinion that he really doesn't think I should keep him from galloping back to the barn by getting slightly light in front and tossing and shaking his head (sometimes augmenting the opionion by whacking my head with his tail), I laugh at him and he ends up having to walk. Of course, it's his "turbo walk" - We'll be 20 feet ahead of everyone else in a heartbeat - but he's walking. It's a compromise, and we're both happy.

A few days later he'll be doing a lesson with a nine year old little girl, and be a perfect little gentleman, taking care of her and when she asks "correctly", doing what she asks. He doesn't do that many lessons - just enough to keep him from turning into a complete Great White Whale - but the lesson kids who ride him are in love. He charms them all. He loves people.

When I got to the barn Saturday, the girl who gives lessons, Jess, interrupted her current lesson to tell me what a star Tico had been on Wednesday.

You'd think I was his mother, I'm so proud of him sometimes. :)

Sometimes I think "bad feelings" should be more specific

I went to the barn yesterday - nothing new, I almost always can be found at the barn on the weekends.

It's hard to explain this: some days, I feel completely in tune with the world, balanced, perfect harmony. When I ride, I sit deep in the saddle, straight and tall, my body never hindering my horse's movement.

Those days are fairly rare. And yesterday was not one of them. And I knew it.

Some days might have moments, glimmers of greatness... but yesterday was not one of them. And I knew it.

Not that Tico was being particularly bad. I tacked him up in his stall, since he's started the "OMG there are scary things above me EVERYWHERE! Must get away, AIIIEEEEE!!!" breaking of the crossties behavior again this winter, after a long hiatus.

But things didn't feel "right".

I'd tacked him up western. I got on him, but I wasn't happy with the saddle placement, got off, shifted it around and got back on. He had a couple of yee-hah! moments, though nothing of import. These were only to be expected, since the horses hadn't gone out yesterday morning because of the gale force winds. All in all, he was being a pretty good boy.

Still, I cut my ride short - the feeling of unease was still there, and I just didn't want to chance anything. When I ignore these things, I usually regret it.

So I put him back in his stall with a bit of hay to keep him busy, and went out to get the yak, who'd been put outside once the wind had died down a bit.

Dusty, who is starting into full molt, was waiting for me. He doesn't move around much outside in the snow, only following the tracks left by other horses who'd been in the same turnout, and his back fetlocks stock up a lot in the winter. I try to get him moving a bit when I'm there, by taking him into the indoor ring. Sometimes I sit on him bareback, sometimes I just lead him around. Sometimes, I take him out on the lunge line and let him kick up his heels, which the 28 year old fart still does pretty enthusiastically on the lunge line.

First I took off a few layers of hair with the shedding blade, then walked him out into the indoor on a lead line.

There was no one else in the indoor when we went in. Walking towards the front of the ring, I started to think... I'll put him on a lunge line and let him run around a bit, he'll have fun, and it's the old man, it'll be fine!

There's a lungeline hanging on a hook at the front of the ring, tied neatly up in loops. I grabbed it, attached it to his halter as I removed the lead line, and started leading him into the middle of the ring as I unravelled the twists and loops.

Dusty took off. Still walking forward, I looked up to admire his version of the dressage balotade movement. I'm sure it was meant to be a buck, but when you're a 28 year old arthritic horse, the back legs don't stretch like they used to. And he's so fluffy, it's damned cute.

But I looked back down just in time to see, to my horror, one of the loops of the lunge line start passing up my right leg in as neat a little crochet stitch you'd ever want to execute.

The next moments went by, like most disastrous moments, in slow motion. My right leg, now attached to an 1100 lb frisking geriatric, came out from under me, diagonally. My left leg, not so luckily still on the ground, got dragged sideways as I went down. I heard an awful ripping and tearing coming from my knee - it sounded like cloth tearing - and thought to myself, oddly detached, "that can't be good."

I lay flat on the ground. I got the lungeline off my right leg somehow - I don't even remember doing it. Maybe it got pulled off once I went horizontal, right down over my toes, since Dusty was now happily trotting circles around me, oblivious.

Flat on my back, arm with the lungeline up in the air so that it didn't wrap around me as he circled, I pondered things. One thing I did not want to do was try to move my left leg, which was turned knee in, calf and toes out to the side.

If my left knee had decided to detach itself and wander off, I would have been quite happy at that moment with our parting of the ways. I didn't know knees could hurt that badly.

I looked to my left, towards the windows looking into the ring from the front. No one was there.

Down towards my foot and to the right (I'm still horizontal), I could see into the new section of the barn, and Tadpole was on the crossties. Just then, Jackie, Tad's owner, saw me and came over.

Thank goodness for Jackie - she took Dusty away from me and got him stopped. I struggled to my feet - or foot, anyway. She asked "Are you ok?" And I told her that I felt like I was going to throw up.

I explained what happened, and she helped me put Dusty away and generally get my butt out of there, and go home to ice my knee.

Once home, the waves of pain were unbelievable. I was icing it and had taken some ibuprofen. It didn't look really swollen, but I was shivering with shock. Geoffrey called the doctor's office answering service, and they said they'd have a doctor call back.

By the time he called back, the shivering had subsided and the ibuprofen and ice had dulled the pain. After explaining to him what had happened, he said it was up to me what to do - continue with icing and ibuprofen, or come in to the ER and get it looked at.

I hate the ER. And I was relatively comfortable, so last night I decided to just continue with the icing and ibuprofen regimen and see what tomorrow brings.

Today is tomorrow. I'm going to the ER.

Who'd have thought my geezer would have been the one the "bad feelings" were warning me about?

Post Script: I went to the ER today. It's a medial collateral knee ligament sprain, and I'm supposed to take it easy for 4 to 6 weeks. Arrgh.