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
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
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3 comments:
Hahaha - Oh where do I begin? I think I get so wrapped up in my horse, that somehow I just forget to think about what I'm doing currently. I have soo many of those stories. I think one of my favorites was the big barn cleanup day where I got the responsibility, along with my best friend and barn buddie, to clean the tack room and bathroom out. Well, being high on life (as most horse crazy 13 year olds are) I came up with the idea of dragging the hose through the tack room to "pressure wash" the floor. Needless to say, after dumping gallons (lots of them) of water on the floor, I realized that there was no drain or way to really get the now very muddy water UP. Oh well. It's now been 10 years, and I STILL get flack for not thinking that one through. :-)
Hahaha, wow. I have NO idea where to begin. Probably my most embarrasing moment was when I was at a show. We had to do three over-fences courses, and I couldn't remember my courses, so every time I went in, I would ride the same course over and over again.
Needless to say, that wasn't a very good show.
My biggest screw-up was probably when I decided that it would be okay to ground-tie my rescued ex-racehorse at a horse show. BAD IDEA. I dropped the lead, turned around to get my bridle, turned back around, and he was gone, high-tailing it across the show grounds. Apparently, a girl lunging her horse nearby had cracked her whip, scaring the wits out of Teddy.
The pony hunters division had to be halted for twenty minutes while we captured my poor horse.
Thanks to both of you, I am beginning my day with a laugh! Fortunately, my husband is a neat freak, so my tackroom and feedroom get swept clean whether I like it or not. And my sister's ex-race horse (also a rescue case, oddly enough) has also taken a "tour" of his environment on several occasions. Some of our most embarrassing moments are the most humorous ones, huh?
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