The Day the Barn Stood Still

It was one of my worst days as a young horsewoman.
Not to be confused with the concussion, the broken elbow, the dizzy nauseous sting from being kicked in the aforementioned broken elbow, or the day we put the one of the quietest geldings I've known in the ground. Nor with the moments I've hated the sport, the times spend crying over misunderstood theories, or the night I decided never to ride again. (obviously, that lasted a looong time.)

We feed by running the horses up in their groups, leaving their stalls open. Most dodge into their own; the young and the new are less predictable. On this particular day, I was not feeding. It was a Friday, and our weekend feeder had come in. Because I have the social life of a 70 year old hermit, I was still at the farm, taking up space. Plus Horse had been rather questionable about feeding, and I felt the need to supervise..

In addition to having stalls, we have three feeding stalls. I would say there are the size of a straight-load trailer stall. One is open; the other two house our show equipment (tents, tables, scoreboards, so forth.) They are dark and cob-webbed and cramped.

In other words, they are EXACTLY what any normal horse would avoid.

Horse is not normal. I have lost all hope in her basic sanity.

Horse climbed over the tents and tables, wedging herself into the show equipment stall. Upon completing this task, she discovered not an ounce of grain. We watched her take a bold step back.. And bump into the foray of tents.

Realizing she was stuck, Horse's anxiety skyrocketed. She began rocking back and forth, bumping the front of the stall only to sling back to the tents. I have used the same technique to get my truck unstuck, but (shocker, I know) that was not comforting. We made an attempt to calm her down and move the tents, but the notion the tents were moving only seemed to agitate her more.

Anyone with horses knows: When things go bad, they go bad fast.

She began banging on either side of the stall, and with no way to move the tents or reach her head (we would have had to climb in where she was pawing and stepping), the feeder and I stepped back.

Then she began to rear and twist. I covered my face. I think I may have let out a strangled scream as I listened to four years of my life crash into the sides of the stall. I had the briefest sick thought that she was going to tear down the wall of the stall to get out.

Instead when I looked up, there was Horse -- free and limping. Somehow, she had reared and turned around in the tiny stall. She had very minor slices, nothing like the door incident.

I gave her a week off, but she was still stiff and sore. I rode her once, and she balked more than her typical minor hissy fits. Something was wrong.

I cried after I called my mom to come pick her up. I'll admit it, I hate that one afternoon can change your goals. That fifteen minutes might be the end of everything.

Mom came and picked her up, bringing me Barbie (who you all will hear tons about soon!). Horse's future is in a pasture for a while, until I get home to take her to the vet.

-- Girl