In Which The Sainted Mare is a Complete Twit...

He may look cute and harmless,
but Sug knows he's a deadly mare assassin.

Yep.  Normally she's as bombproof as horse gets. Today, however, the Sainted One's halo slipped. Big Time.

Okay, she's just coming back into work after some time off on the IR so she may be feeling frisky.  However, before her recent boo-boo she was on light duty with the kids while I was sick.  Long story short?  She's fat as a house and very out of shape, which normally makes her lazy as heck.  Portly mares should not be on their toes and on the muscle.  Just sayin'.

It was hot as blazes last night so we did our serious work in the shade of the indoor and she was fine in there.  Lazy, even.  No surprise. Then my son and I decided to cool the horses by walking them in the field.  This will be nice and relaxing, I thought.

I thought wrong.

We were approaching the first field when I noticed the deer.  I turned in my saddle to remind the Boy, the one who was riding the Sensitive Thoroughbred, to keep his weight in his heels and a steady contact with Jame's mouth.  I'd planned on offering additional advice, but before the words had passed my lips The Sainted Mare snorted and did an abrupt 180 to the left, which had my yap snapping shut and forced me to concentrate on staying in the saddle.  Our Mach-1 turn on the haunches left us facing Noah and James and, God help me, the deer that had materialized about 20 feet behind them.  Sug saw that deer and whirled around again, this time to the right.  Somehow I managed to stay in the saddle through this spin as well.  (I've always been really impressed by reiners, but after these spins, they've been elevated to new heights in my estimation.)

The Sensitive Thoroughbred behind us? Stood like a stone the whole time, clearly wondering what the fuss was all about.

Smart people would probably have given up at that point.  Well, I'm not too bright, so onward we went.  We got about 20 yards before we saw more deer; two adolescents were grazing contentedly about 50 yards away.  "Awww, look at the cute deer," we said.  The cute deer were clearly also Rabid Kamikazi Deer, as they took one gander at us and decided to Gallop. Across.The. Field. Directly. At. Us.  Sug took that opportunity to crap herself and do a 360-plant-snort maneuver that had Baby Buck Rabid Kamikazi deer doing the same. Sug snorted and planted her feet again. So did BBRK.  I kid you not.  This really happened.

What did James, the Sensitive Thoroughbred do?  Nothing. Nada. Bupkus.  Just stood and and watched the deer like he was watching some kind of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom re-run.

You'd think I'd have wised up and headed back by now.  You'd be wrong.  I'm a special kind of stupid, it would seem.  A glutton for punishment, even.  By golly, I was gonna put a stop to this spook nonsense and enjoy myself a nice trail ride.  We continued on into the next field, where Sug decided to spook at a tire fence she's seen at least 3200 times.  So we spent some time sight seeing around the tire jump making sure there were no trolls, cougars, or alligators lurking about. 

I finally lost it when she spooked at a crow that had been in our line of sight for-freaking-ever.  At that point I announced that I was officially done with the drama llama crapola and I asked her do shoulders-in and haunches-in and leg yields the rest of the way back to the barn to keep her overactive pea-sized brain concentrating on something other than imaginary predators.  She expressed her displeasure by grunting and huffing, but settled down and refrained from further silliness. 

The Sensitive Thoroughbred followed us quietly home, his halo firmly in place right over the top of his handsome Thoroughbred head. 

The very good Sensitive Thoroughbred
sharing some love with his Boy