They Say Water in the Toilet Spins Backwards in Australia...

They also say that, once in a long while, there shall be a day where I CANNOT, for the life of me, figure out what is (or isn't) going through the heads of my horses.

I hadn't seen my horses in 3 days. I finally got some time to go to the barn. Not rocket science, folks.

I figured I'd go easy on both of them, given the time they'd had off, and the temperature and humidity were both uncomfortably high. I got two horses who both acted stupid-goofy, tight, tense and absolutely wired. Even Stella, who's normally very sensible, was acting odd.

I don't know if it was because they'd had the time off. I don't know if it was because they were mad at me, or thought I'd forgotten them (this is something Ernie has done before; if I don't give him attention on a daily basis, especially if he sees me working with another horse and not him, he gets extremely jealous and pissy. Yes, I'm anthropomorphizing to some degree, but I've also recognized these qualities in him when he's out in a herd and has to "guard" his favorite pasture buddy.)

Ernie started acting anxious and unsettled on the crossties. I brought him into the indoor to lunge first, thinking he probably just had some extra energy from the time off and needed to get it out. I always lunge him in side reins; I had to reteach him how to lunge early this past spring because I realized that he wasn't relaxed on the lunge, which translated to a tense ride. With the side reins, he has to think about the contact instead of the scaries in the corner or the horse at the other end of the ring. The contact encourages him to stretch over his back and drop his head down instead of going with it up.

Well, the lunging was a fail. He was all up and worried about horses he could hear outside, so I lunged him at the "non-scary" end. It didn't matter, because he was still as concerned about the far corner he doesn't like. So we moved down to the other end and I figured I'd let him deal with it there. He was still rushed, tense, hollow and not paying attention in the slightest. I went to Plan B: I went to push him into the canter, thinking I'd ask for several transitions between canter and trot to get his attention. As I prepped to ask for the canter, he bulged sideways at something (a shadow, a lead, a speck of dust, who knows with this horse). I shook the lunge line to signal him to get back out onto the circle. Instead, he jumped, stumbled into a canta-gallop, lost his footing and FELL. I mean WIPED OUT, on his side, all four legs just kind slid out from underneath him. He heaved over onto his side and got up quickly, catching one of the side reins under his leg and pulling the bit halfway out of his mouth.

I barely got him to stand still long enough to quickly unhook the side reins and dust the saddle off. He looked a little shocked (I got one of those looks like, "What, like YOU wouldn't have fallen over, too?") He didn't seem hurt; there was a good scrape on his left forearm and a skin rub just in front of his flank, but I felt him down nonetheless, just to check. We walked around the arena for a little while; he was breathing heavy and pretty stiff, but he seemed OK. I decided it would prudent to not really work at all today, but I put him back on the lunge to make sure he wouldn't walk off lame. He looked funny to me on the LF, the club foot, but he has always looked sort of off on that leg due to the club foot anyway. I have a tendency to look for things to the point where I make them exist in my head. Other than the supposed gait abnormalities up front, he actually completely chilled out, was stretching nicely over his topline, was relaxed and tracking up, etc. It was totally bizarre.

Stella's workout went better. No falling over; she had a lot of "go" for sure, but I'm OK with that so long as I can get her to put it to good use the majority of the time. We kept the long-lining session short and sweet, but even my normally good-natured mare was a little on the kooky side.

Ernie got Bute-d, linament-ed and coldhosed. I'm praying to God I didn't break him. He's already been becoming stiffer and harder to bend. I wondering if he's chiropractically out somewhere, but he doesn't appear to be too tender or sore in one particular spot. Maybe he really is starting to feel his age...