Paula’s blog – Not the day I had planned!

What a difference a few days makes in the weather. I quite enjoyed the hard frosts as the horses came in relatively clean and it gave them (and me) a break from the sloshy mud, although after it defrosted it was a bit squishy for a time. I do have to say though the evenings being slightly lighter for longer is nice as is the dry weather – roll on spring!

I’m not sure if it’s just mine, but my trio have gone a bit haywire to say the least, especially in the last week.

Our neighbour who comes up to visit the horses finally got to witness their ‘explosive’ behaviour, as the evening she joined us was utter chaos in the field. We clearly had taken longer than they had liked to get from the yard to bringing them in, so Miss Autumn decided to start a rebellion by galloping about and setting the other two off with her. It’s a wonder none of them (or me and the other half) got hurt with their shenanigans as there were horses and hooves everywhere, with both Autumn and Bob slipping about when galloping on the bank by the arena. Luckily, we caught them and got them in without any injury, but I think it gave our neighbour a bit of a sense check about how unpredictable they can sometimes be, as every time she’s seen them, they’ve been fairly well behaved.

I had planned to take Bob out to a qualifier at the weekend and was so looking forward to it, but he clearly had other ideas. I got him in and started grooming to remove the freshly rolled in mud, and during this time he started to get a bit shifty on the yard not standing still. I then got the van out whilst my other half stood with Bob as he was still messing about, only now he was starting to get bargy knocking my partner out of the way. We swapped and I took over handling Bob whilst my partner loaded the van, but as time went by, he was playing up even more – trying to crush me against the fence or swing his bum at me. As I went to get another brush, he managed to undo his lead rope and do a ten-minute frenzied gallop around the yard (any grass we had growing is now gone and it looks like a ploughed field). It was definitely not the time for him to have zoomies!

I eventually caught him after nearly being run over four times, tied him up and within a few minutes he settled and started eating his hay like nothing had happened! Annoyingly, the next minute in the field the mares decided it was their turn and went whizzing around which again set him off. I managed to settle him and was still determined to go to this show, so we took him to the van, would he load? Nope! After it was clear he was not cooperating, I decided to swap to his dually halter and he walked on within five minutes. By this time thanks to all the playing up and zoomies, we were 40 minutes away from the start of the class with the yard still to lock up and travel time, so no chance we would make it. I messaged the venue and explained the chaos that had ensued, and they were brilliant and have moved my entry to the next qualifier!

I was so disappointed at not going and couldn’t believe how naughty he had been. I did keep an eye on him and the mares throughout the day via the camera as I was a bit worried he could have colicked due to the stress, and I did notice on several occasions they were galloping about. It was out of character for that much bad behaviour, so there could have been something that frightened him that we missed that had caused the upset, so I have let him off and called it a one off! He and the mares have been a lot better and calmer the last couple of days, so fingers crossed for next week that we get to go out this time and not play dodge the freight train horse galloping at me!

We always need to be aware that even the calmest horses can have a bad day and we need to make sure we protect ourselves with hats and gloves etc, as even if they don’t mean it, they could injure us quite badly.