angry

Anyone who has owned or been close to horses has probably been fooled, at least once. Now if you fell, you’d never admit it unless, yeah, unless it was during a time when you were doing something daring or outrageous or there were witnesses who couldn’t wait to tell others.

Being pushed generally means an injury of some kind; And aside from wounded pride, it comes with bragging rights and as many opportunities as possible to tell the story in your own rousing performance. Which can be interpreted by some as a bit of an exaggeration.

Normally you cannot choose the place when a horse decides to put you on the ground. It often comes when you least expect it and is sure to add insult to injury!

Nugget was an excellent example of a mare who liked to show how good she felt by throwing her heels to the sky and her nose to the ground. He didn’t always let you know he was feeling his oatmeal, but at the most inopportune time and place all hell would break loose. Adding more elements to the surprise was that he rarely bucked with someone on his back. She was simply cunning about when she would decide to act! But when he got down to lowering his head, a cyclist, if he wasn’t paying attention, would end up on the ground and probably walk home.

And that’s how a trip to the ER became necessary to make sure there were no broken bones but that the ego remained intact. After all, a warning had been issued: “If you run to that mare, be careful she doesn’t buck you.” Now tell me, what does an adult know that a teenager does not. Apparently a lot when it came to the Nugget and about a mile from the barn, this was yet to be proven.

On a gravel road, surrounded by friends on saddled horses, the challenge was launched of who could get back to the stable first. The race was on and that was the moment when the teenager, who preferred to ride bareback, was met with an inverted view of Nugget’s shoulder before completing the midair antics that ended in an unceremonious encounter with the trail of gravel. The seconds divided in half could not have anticipated how quickly that mare deposited her rider’s elbow first into a world of pain and made her way to the stable.

The look of disgust the mare gave the teenage girl when she was caught and brought in to take the rider home was priceless. But as anyone who has owned or been close to horses knows, if they bother you, hurt or not, you ride again. Especially if you have been warned.