I am Such a Dork

Occasionally I do something so stupid that I'm glad no one was around to witness my behavior. For example, the other day I was in a hurry to fly spray Lexi. After a handful of brisk, cool days all it took was one sunny morning and the flies returned, as if they'd come home from a holiday. So I reached into the tackroom and grabbed the white plastic bottle of repellent. I began spritzing and blasting away until a fine mist covered my mare. Oddly, the flies were not repelled. And Lexi began to look at me with the most puzzled of expressions.

"Why must I smell like jalapeno salsa?" she seemed to ask.

That's when I looked at the bottle in my hand. Uh-oh. It wasn't the fly spray I had grabbed, but the bottle of No Chew. It's great for Wally-proofing anything Wally might want to idly chomp on, like the occasional hose fixture, the snap end of the longe line or the wooden planter outside the tackroom. But it's not so great as a fly repellent.

So Lexi got a bath.

There have been other "duh!" moments. Like I've rushed out to blanket Wally and Lexi late at night, when a cold front has suddenly crept over the ridge line. My hands are numb, my feet are chilled, my breath creates steam in the night air. All I want to do is get those blankets on and get back inside! My haste, however, usually results in my pulling the blanket over the horse's head, scrambling for surcingle clips and back leg straps, only to discover in my frost-bitten delirium that I have the blanket inside-out.

And finally we have the times where multitudes of people are treated to the spectacle of me being a dork. Worst example? At the top of my own, personal list is the time I was riding in a hunter hack class at a large show benefiting a charity. There was a host of volunteers and spectators, not to mention some high profile riders who'd brought their nice horses to participate. After we'd worked on the flat, we were standing in the center of the arena while the judge explained how he wanted us to take the pair of jumps before us.

Whatever. I was busy yammering (discreetly, so) to my one of my barn buddies who'd parked her horse next to mine in the line-up.

So when it came time to jump, I dutifully backed my gelding out of the line-up, picked up the canter and jumped the two fences. In the wrong direction.

Like I said, sometimes I am such a dork.

Would you like to share an embarrassing moment or any other comment? Click on "comments" below or email me at: hc-editor@bowtieinc.com