"Light Lunging"

 (Angry mare says , get her out of stall now)

Yesterday I had to jet-set east of the mountains for a meeting, but managed to head straight to the barn after the plane put its wheels back down on the Seattle side of the state.  A day of travel and down time to think about our next steps for treatment, had me excited to get Princess P all ready for her really exciting boring repetitive vet visit.  By the time I made it out there, the barn was totally abandoned, so I figured that I would give her a nice, slow (calm) lunge and then hose her down and make her nice and shiny for her big field trip.

She seemed a little agitated while I groomed her, but I figured that was just because no one else was walking around the barn, so whenever I disappeared to collect something (bridle, boots, my gloves.. why can't I ever grab everything I need in one trip to the tack room??) she got all annoyed and pawed and snorted and danced around. 

I hummed along merrily, totally thrilled to have quiet barn time when the sun was actually out and booted the beast up. 

P was READY.  we got to the ring, and she immediately took the liberty of beginning her own lunge circle when really we were supposed to be calmly walking to the other end of the ring so that I could stand in the sunlight.  (red flag).

Then when I clucked lightly for her to walk on, we had a LOVELY halt-canter depart which caught me slightly off guard and result in a nice lunge line burn on my left hand (through my gloves).

hoo boy, what a start.

She was a bitch.  a raging, full heat, hyper, psycho bitch.  A leaping, jumping, galloping, obstinate, stubborn, crazy, eyeballs bugging out of her head bitch.  I was cringing - alternating between pulling her in and trying to get her attention (make the crazy mare slow down) and trying to keep her on as large a circle as possible so as to reduce the insane strain on her joints, the chance of her falling on herself, oh and to maintain some semblance of groundwork manners.  It took about 15 minutes before I could get her to trot nicely on a consistently large circle and stretch her face down, but we got there.  It certainly wasn't the calm, light trot work I was hoping for, and she also managed to get some really nice little flakes of hoof to come loose (idiot). But I was happy to get the beast out of her stall. she needed it.

When I finally took her back up to the barn for her bath, one of the grooms popped her head in and said "oh, hey just so you know she didn't get turned out today" 

Gee, really?? I couldn't tell. (have you seen my mare, her veins are literally popping out of her skin..)

then she added, "well, she pulled the fence down yesterday, so we didn't want to put her back in the small paddocks till we fixed it, and a pony camp was occupying everything else."

PULLED DOWN THE FENCE!?

Mare, really.. let's have a chat.  This is unacceptable behavior, especially given that you are on enough tryptophan to dull an angry rhino.  Oh, and remember your compressed spinal cord?? the thing that's supposed to make you have bad balance and fall over easy?  Oh right, that. Stop acting like an idiot until its fixed!  thx.

Our bath was uneventful.  She seemed to know she was in trouble, so she tolerated everything, including a blast of water to the face.  At least I had that to be thankful for. 

So my plan today is to head out of work a little bit early, bubble wrap the mare, navigate through the pony camp and shove her back in the trailer.  I mentioned that we are videotaping a full neuro exam to supplement her x-rays for the specialist... I'm crossing my fingers that we get to do that when she's dropped off so that a) I can watch and b) I can use my camera and ensure that I get a copy. :)