The Open House continues.............

It was not much longer in the presentations of Arabian horses when the second unit from the fire department drove by our farm. By now I was a bit unnerved by this coincidence. Two times in the same day and I was beginning to worry even though I'm not normally sensitive to such things. We sure didn't need any kind of accident this year.

Last year at our open house, Suede had gone through a fence. We had the vet arrive for an emergency call before the open house was even over. Now seeing two emergency vehicles in just a short span of time, I was definitely a bit off balance. We sure didn't need anymore excitement in our lives.

This year I had taken extra precautions to see that Suede didn't get anymore ideas about jumping. I'd placed blue barrels outside the fence line he'd used to exit last year. In addition Dave would move into position right at the jumping point just before Suede came into the ring. If that didn't stop the varmint from jumping, my guess is nothing would.

The appearance of the fire department vehicles hadn't been lost on Dave either. I was to hear later that he was cracking jokes about them "being prepared" for our event when he saw them. He might have been laughing......but I wasn't. Just too much had gone wrong for me to feel secure.

It's a good thing I had Arabian horses to focus my attentions. They were having enough trouble with the speakers spooking them at the gate, I didn't really have time to worry about omens.............good or bad.

I began watching particular horses for their reaction to the speakers. There were some along the way that I decided it was necessary to turn my microphone off while I dealt with them because they were so reactive to the speakers.

One such horse was Suede. I sure didn't need anything to encourage him into escape mode like he'd done last year. The poor boy's eyes about bugged right out of his head at the sound from the speakers behind him. I didn't turn my mic back on until he was on his way back to the barn. He didn't leap any fences this year but he sure did take a long hard look a couple of times.........I was glad that Dave was positioned on the other side.

As the horses came and went, I couldn't believe the pattern I was seeing. My usual bright, frisky, playful Arabians were actually kind of quiet. Crystal and I were having problems getting them to move, let alone show much expression. I think almost every last one of them (well, maybe not Storm) would have preferred to graze that show off! Talk about a bunch of duds!

The other thing that seemed to happen over and over again was horses not wanting to be caught. They may not have wanted to put on a show but they didn't want to go back to their stalls either. We saw more action once we tried to catch them than we ever did before.

Normally, there's always ONE that decides not to get caught. But this year it seemed like half the horses picked up and ran the other way once they saw the halter. I rarely have problems catching horses........but horses are just like kids..........they love to make us look bad.........and mine did! But the crowd loved it, I think.

I think it was good ole Tag that figured out that the corners were to be avoided at all costs. He didn't want to be caught so he wouldn't go anywhere near a corner. He'd stop in the middle of a fence line but we couldn't push him into the corner. He refused to move. That's pretty darn smart, if you ask me. We did finally get him "cornered."




Storm, on the other hand, came out half way full of himself. He certainly wasn't his most brilliant........but next to all the others he looked pretty darn good. The stallion wanted to run around and blow a bit with his tail up high. It was a relief to see one of my horses actually want to show.

To be continued..............

The Open House continues on......

Again the top picture is one taken my SIL, Ray, and the second one by Lady of Chaos.

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