Poor life choice son....

For the love Dan... FOR... THE.... LOVE!!!!

I have no idea what goes on in his head somedays. I got up early because the farrier was coming at 7:30. I timed it so that I could feed them at 7:20 so they would be done eating but not sitting in their stalls forever. Because... Dan. So I accomplished that and they were eating. I was a few minutes early so I decided to go grab a bowl of cereal. While eating it I heard some commotion but figured Dan was just banging on the door, like usual. I ate super quick and went back out and noticed that Dan's door was open to his stall. Fine... I closed the patio gates since I can't shut Funny's door, so.. no big deal. I was going to let him loose anyways once Funny was done eating. But I was impressed that he was able to slide the latch on his door and open it.

I was walking out there to check to make sure that they hadn't beat each other up when Dan started walking towards the gate. I saw the wheels turning and as I was saying "Don't Do it DAN!!!!!" he looked at the gate... took two trot steps and then launched himself over it! NO SIR!!! It's a decent sized gate and it's also on an uphill slant, so the poor guy really didn't stand a chance. He mostly cleared it but he's not super tidy up front, so a front foot snagged it and pulled him down and then he sort of slid and somersalted the rest of the way. Somehow his front foot got hung in the gate as one of the wires slid under his shoe. And he landed on the gate. 

WHY!??! WHY are you like this??? At least... he laid there without flailing.... just..."Mooooommmmm... a little help here". Lyric was still in her stall but Funny was loose, so I immediately ran up and tried to pull his shoe loose. Thank you God that it came loose easily and then I was able to push his front legs over and then pulled the gate out from underneath his hind legs. And then he jumped right up and took off! I slid the gate out of the way and then freed Lyric before she freaked out and then both girls took off too. What on earth is going on?? Why are y'all so spazzy!!!? I have no idea if Dan was just big mad and got pissed and then the girls got jazzed because of him or if something spooked him and made him decide to jump out. He didn't seem frantic though when I saw him look at the gate and make the decision to jump it. It was calm and cool. So... who knows? Of course they all ran around like idiots. I'm guessing that me trying to pull the gate off the hinge and get the chain unhooked didn't help as it made a bunch of noise. And then I had to flip it over the fence into Fleck's patio, which is closed off because his stall is now full of hay. Good gravy. I decided at that point that Patrick was coming at 8, instead of 7:30 so I just let them run around a bit. Finally they settled and then I heard Patrick's truck so I went out to catch them.

Thank you God because Dan didn't have any wounds. He had a tiny little bit of missing hair on his forearm. And even managed to keep all his shoes on. And he was certainly sound looking as he was galloping around like a fool. Somehow Funny had a knick on a hind foot. I don't know if she clipped herself or what, but... it was only a flesh wound. 

We did Dan first because... I wasn't going to try to lock him in again immediately. He had settled down but he was still in a weird mood because he bit me. Like the little pinch between the teeth kind of bite. Oooooh... I"m so over you!! We managed to get him shod without any other issues. And then I stuck him back in his stall, with the door closed. But he was okay to sit there and eat hay. Weirdo. Grateful that it was the case, but still... weirdo!

After they were all done he got to go back out for a bit. And then I rode Lyric first because I needed to coordinate with Jean using the arena. But then I took him to Ashland. I was waiting for him to be a twit going to the trailer but he wasn't. We got to Ashland and saw a friend, who was laughing at me and Dan cause she had seen my post. She was telling me about her young horse who was the same as Dan. Yay... I'm not alone in the world. ha ha. I told her that I would love to ride with her but I felt like Dan and I needed a solo ride because I didn't know if I was going to have a sore horse... or a rowdy feral one who needed to long trot the whole time. He's only had 4 days off after his show, but apparently... 

 

So we went out by ourselves and we had a lovely ride. He was quite good. He felt a little bit sore/stiff but... it's hard to tell because he often feels a bit wonky in the walk. I did a bit of trotting to feel him out. The first couple of steps he felt pretty lame behind. Go figure! Your stifle is not happy jumping anymore, especially not 4' gates from a downhill and then flipping over them! And of course he landed on his right side too. But then I picked up the trot again after a bit longer and he felt good. We ended up doing a bunch of little trots here and there and he felt better. So yay! I'm sure he's a little bit stiff and sore, but... not my fault! I really don't feel bad for you! Except I kind of did by the end of the ride. He was a good boy. Although he had ONE moment of temptation. He thought about sticking his head down and bucking, but I pulled him up and told him no and he didn't fight me on it. Good boy.

 

I kept is slightly short as I didn't want to make him super sore and I was already later than I had meant to be and still wanted to ride Funny. And maybe drag my arena before Hurricane Isaias hit. So we headed back in.

 

And at dinner he was back to his normal self. Pissed about the stall but not frantic or attempting to escape. Granted he did open his door again. So I guess I'm going to have to switch stalls and put him in the open one or find a way to lock his. Or just accept the fact that he can't be contained anymore. Sigh...