Region 5 Championships.......a Little Architecture......

Part 1

After Claudia Mitchell's class on Market Jitters, I went back to my stall to check on my Arabian yearling colt. Rhet was evidently rattled by my attempt to sand his feet and he was back digging holes to China. I texted Richard reminding him to bring his rasp.......we were going to need it.

The colt was also taking some time to visit the neighbors behind who by now had become good friends. I could hear them laughing and giggling at his antics. It's a good thing the colt thrives on laughter because it created a diversion from some of that digging.

As it got later and later with still no help I called Dan and Chris, the colt's breeders, on the phone. One of the reasons I'd decided to show in this region was so they could see Rhet shown. Yet, due to an emergency situation with one of their dogs at home, they'd decided not to come.

Chris could tell from the sound of my voice that I was stressed. It was after 4:30 and I didn't even have the colt clipped yet nor could I do it without help. I had no idea when anyone would arrive so I could get started.

Then there was the issue of clipping Rhet's ears. I always try to do that kind of clipping a couple of days ahead of time just in case hair happens to fall down into the ear. Horses with hair in their ears don't "use" their ears when asked and a halter horse with "no ears" is not a good thing.

With a colt like Rhet there's a good chance of making mistakes anyway and getting hair where it doesn't belong. The closer I got to my deadline without help the odds of these kinds of things would surely go up. Stress never makes for a "good" horse.

Knowing exactly what I meant about all of this stuff with Rhet Chris could see why I was stressed. When we got off the phone she told Dan to get his b*tt in the car because I needed help. Then she called me back to tell me help was on the way. I went up to the arena again to kill more time while I waited for Dan.

Dan called when he was pulling into the parking lot at the fairgrounds. I told hin where he could find Rhet's stall and headed back that way to meet him. As I got came out of the permanent barn towards the portable I looked over to see my colt standing in the doorway looking out and I saw something peculiar. It looked like Rhet had somehow acquired a set of very large "buck teeth."

That picture only lasted for just an instant but my mind raced with the possibilities. What in the heck had Rhet had in his mouth that could look like that. I ran to the stall to see what he'd gotten himself into this time.

As I looked into the stall, I couldn't believe my eyes. There was Styrofoam everywhere. In the last hour and a half Rhet had managed to "remodel" his portable stall. By tearing down one of the heavy tarp panels on the lower portion of the stall walls the colt had exposed the Styrofoam barrier inside. Then he'd broken that white panel into an assortment of chunks and shreds.

Now, I've spent lots of time working as barn manager or show manager at some fairly big horse shows. I've seen portable stalls be destroyed a time or two and I can tell you that Rhet's job on this stall ranked right up there with the best of them. They wouldn't be putting another horse in this stall until the thing had a major overhaul. Not only that............there was no way Rhet could go back into this stall after he'd gotten his bath and such..........so now we had another dilemma......... Then there was what in the heck was this colt going to do next?

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

A Little Grooming



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