Not a good day at work.

The lovely girl Clare, I told you about, who vies with me for tractor duty is in hospital this evening with a broken nose, broken cheekbone & broken eye socket. She has some unspecified internal injuries too. She was double-barrelled in the face today at work,
which means she was kicked by both hind feet of a horse simultaneously.

Unsurprisingly, it was the colts playing up again.

We led a group of them out & Clare's colt was playing up. When she hit him, he bolted,
towing her behind him. He approached Millie, also leading a horse, at a frighteningly
quick pace. Millie had to stop him or he would have hit the rest of us like nine-pins. I was next, behind Millie & don't mind admitting that if Millie hadn't stopped the colt I was wondering how exactly I was supposed to. As the colt stopped, he was too close to Millie's horse, who lashed out with both hind feet. Poor Clare copped it full in the face.

At first I thought the kick has just missed, as Clare remained standing. A second later, she collapsed to the floor, on her back, like the proverbial sack of spuds. Her panicked horse ran over the top of her treading on her stomach. It was when she didn't flinch or even move as this happened that I realised she was unconscious.

The next few minutes were horrible, no-one could help her until we had put our horses
in paddocks & there was lots of shouting & panic. I caught the loose horse & took him back to his box, praying he would be calm & behave as I had misplaced my stock stick in the melee. An ambulance was called & I volunteered to meet it at the end of the driveway to show it exactly where to go.

I felt very tearful watching Clare & was glad to have something useful to do. She is
a very popular girl & it was dreadful to see her usually very pretty face, crushed & bleeding. She was also convulsing & choking on blood. At this point, everyone who was with her, feared the worst. Millie was completely ashen & felt terrible as it was his horse which kicked her. In truth he did a very good job of stopping the runaway horse & couldn't have prevented his horse kicking out.

The ambulance took 25 minutes to arrive as it came from Te Awamutu rather than Cambridge. A jockey had taken a nasty fall at the nearby racetrack hence the
Cambridge ambulance being occupied. As they arrived, I noted with dismay that they
were St. John's Ambulance, imagining them to be the equivalent of the same
organisation in the UK. I don't criticise anyone who gives their time freely but thought
that Clare needed more specialist help. It turns out that over here, there is no other
ambualnce service & the St.Johns are all highly-trained paramedics.

Clare was taken to Waikato hospital, accompanied by Trina & the rest of us tried to get
on with our jobs. Those of us who had seen what happened were very upset &
Kylie & I confessed to one another that it had made us consider quitting the job.

What is upsetting is that Clare did nothing wrong & by some fluke, sustained a very
nasty injury. She was just in the wrong place, which gets you thinking.

Her brother works over here in Auckland & arrived at the hospital very soon afterwards.
Trina & Natasha have gone to see her this evening & the latest is that she is now
conscious & talking but cannot remember what happened. She is also incredibly
gutsy, she asked Trina if her teeth were ok & when Trina asked why, she replied
that she had spent '8 years wearing poxy braces' Trina thinks that's the morphine
doing it's job.

The rest of the day passed in a bit of a blur & I was very glad to have Michelle to
offload to when I came home. As with most shocking images, I keep replaying it over
in my mind. I hope I can ditch the image as horses are supposed to be able to pick
up on what you are feeling.

We have been wondering for some time what the serious injury would be when it came,
as we are all picking up injuries on a daily basis now.

The Tanners have gone to Papamoa this evening to celebrate their Kiwi anniversary.
On their first evening here, 2 years ago, they went to Papamoa, had fish & chips
on the beach & witnessed the most lovely sunset. As they left, Alice was weeping,
having run into a cupboard after instigating an indoor race between her & Harriette.
Eric & Harriette were in the bad books for laughing at Alice's ineptitude & Michelle
remarked drily as they left ...

'See you later Carol, we are off for a happy family evening together'

I used the $10 which I won from Dean in our rugby bet to buy myself a decidedly
average KFC for dinner. One evening with the family away & I am on the junk food. Shameful.

I helped Dean lead 2 racehorses to distant paddocks this afternoon. As we turned
them out he looked at one of them & said, 'I always think of you when I see this
mare' Of course I had to ask why & he replied that her name was 'Dominatrix'

Which makes me wonder, which of you has been telling tales ?

Is it you Weeny ? 'Ride 'em cowboy!'

(Apologies Mum & Ma & Pa Smith)


I had a 'bit of a fire incident' this afternoon.

Kyllie & I took the tractor, hooked it up to the trailer & did the 'rubbish run'
This consists of collecting all the rubbish from everyones houses & the office &
taking it to the dump. The office rubbish must be ignited to destroy any confidential
reports which rival studs may like to get their sticky mitts on.

No problems there then, have done this numerous times, office rubbish smoulders
away uneventfully. Apart from today.

When it was very gusty.

And when something in one of the clinical waste bins (kerosene, I suspect)
went

'WHOOF'

Kylie & I watched in silence for a minute or so & just as I turned to her to express
my doubts about the intensity of the blaze she said the same to me.
The dump paddock contains 4 colts & you can call me paranoid but I had
horrible visions of hundreds of charred neddy skelingtons & Brent being interviewed
in The Waikato Times ...


"Obviously, I never would have employed her had I known she was the
Cedar Lodge Conflagrationist"

I thought the best course of action was to get Millie to look at the fire to decide
if it would burn safely within the pit & so told Kylie to hold on tight in the trailer as
we were heading back to get him a lot quicker than we had arrived.

The raceways are very pitted & even at a sedate 15kph, the trailer bucks & weaves
like a dyspeptic donkey. I don't know how quicky I went back as it wasn't safe to look
down at the dials but poor old Kylie had to stand in the trailer & hang on for dear life
looking like some latter-day Ben Hur.

I thought I had slowed sufficiently to negotiate the last corner but when the
trailer started to overtake us, I realised I hadn't. We jack-knifed, 1st left, then right
whilst I frantically steered into both skids. On either side of me were expensive
10' high fences & gates. I still don't know how I missed them.

As we slid to a halt, it occurred to me that however frightening it had been for
me, it must have been much more so for my poor passenger. I slowly looked around,
expecting to find her flung in a paddock. 'That was scary wasn't it ?' I shouted at her
in what I hoped sounded like a 'I was always in control, kind of voice'
She just nodded mutely, a rictus grin plastered on her face.

After the thrill was over & Millie had confirmed that the fire would indeed, burn safely,
we both giggled, weak-kneed at our escape.

For the rest of the afternoon, whenever she saw me, she would shout

'That was scary wasn't it ?' & set us both of giggling again.

I really like Kylie, she is a good person & I hope to get to know her better.

Shame she's an Aussie & we have to beat them on Saturday.

I am working tomorrow, so I am off for a hot bath as the old back is giving me gip today. Frequent applications of Deep Heat have helped but what I really need is a day off.

I have some foties, will share them soon, probably tomorrow when I get a bit
more down-time. For the time being, tara for now.

Cx