1st October tomorrow ?

Where is the year going ?

At some point in every week, Brent examines a mob of horses. He does this to assess their development & discuss any remedial steps to be taken with staff.

He examines them by having 3 or 4 people parade the horses up & down. Sounds straightforward doesn't it ?

Problem is, they are young, silly & don't like being separated from their mates. It also wouldn't go down too well if they mowed Brent down as he examines them.

We brought in a mob of fillies today who were hyper, fresh & excitable. I was asked to lead 'Nothing less' in the parade. The fillies are paraded singly.

I entered her box & attached a lead rope.

It was all going well at this stage.

In the next box to me, Mark led his filly out onto the parade square. My horse, seeing her mate outside made a mad lunge for her door, disregarding the fact that I was standing in front of it trying to slide the bolt home.

She barged me straight through the door & we arrived in an undignified heap of hooves & shavings directly at Brent's feet whilst he was scrutinising the 1st filly.

Without so much as taking his eyes from his notebook he said

'One at a time please Carol.'

I wanted the ground to swallow me up but that wasn't the end of my problems. Relieved at being in the open with her buddy my filly was in no hurry to go back in the box. After much pulling, coaxing & finally threatening I got her inside.

She then proceeded to quite determinedly pin me into the corner of the box by leaning her entire body weight on me. I have occasionally known a horse inadvertently barge or a horse which tries to trap you against a wall if it does not want to be handled on one side.

I have never had a horse systematically set about trying to crush me before & it wasn't at all pleasant.

Within a very short space of time I couldn't breathe & my ribs felt like they were going to break. I tried putting my elbow in her side but my arms were pinioned to my sides.

I tried to attract Trina's attention as she was in the next box along but couldn't call properly due to lack of breath.

I was seeing yellow pinpricks when thankfully she looked over, saw my predicament & hurried in to move the filly.

It was very unnerving & I gratefully accepted Trina's suggestion that she lead the filly for Brent.

The pleasant part of the day was seeing the filly who has been in long term confinement in the barn, go out for the 1st time in over 2 months today. I will miss sitting with her at lunchtime but I can't say I will miss the daily saga of trying to groom her without her dancing on my head.

That's it for today, short I'm afraid, have to go make my packed lunch.

Night all,

Cx