So, My Man and I were changing wheel lines on Friday evening, and we had to hook up the hand lines that water the horse pasture...and it was taking a lil' bit longer than planned. The horses hadn't been fed yet, but we were only an hour behind schedule.
I had just got done telling My Man how well Gus was doing...settling in nicely and he was no longer worried about the other horses (even though they were only 25 yards from him). I had enough confidence in him to leave him in the round pen during the day. It attaches to his run, so it just gives him more room.
We had just started hooking up the lines, and we heard a huge crash, boom, bang. Looking up at the barn, we see a cloud of dust with Gus in the middle of it...on the ground. He then scrambled to his feet and headed for the horses at gate. He had successfully jumped out of the round pen...but in doing so, he landed on the panels and had his first wreck. Knock on wood this is his last!
I should have taken the photo when they were still attached
to the rest of the round pen. But he bent the top
on the left panel, and his weight collapsed
the legs on both of them. Half of the pen
was no longer round...he pulled it all out of shape.
I was so glad he didn't break a leg! He only had scraped some hair off on his front legs, and he had a pretty big swollen bruise on his left outside forearm.
Of course I need to catch him and get him back to his stall and run. I get a halter and quietly approach him and wait for him to acknowledge that I'm there. He proceeds to take off running toward the barn and runs into a field fence type fence and he rips it off the post and Gus's front legs are stuck in the field fencing...and he stops...and begins eating...he tries to pick his feed up...and can't...and he continues eating. He picked up his front feet again and wiggled them around enough to where they came out of the fence and he walked off...calm as a cucumber! He proceeds to go in the front door of the barn, and I close up the barn so he can't get out.
I'm still in amazement that he was so stupid about jumping out of the 5 foot panels, but didn't give a rip about being tangled in wire...go figure!
The next day, I didn't let him out of his run, but went ahead and turned him out with Colt in the irrigated pasture in the afternoon. I was confident enough that he would let me catch him with Colt being caught too...they were best of buds!
There was a lot of this kind of action!
And after Colt herded Gus around like he was
a cow for 10 minutes, they went to eating grass.
Colt helped me teach Gus to pony...so Gus will get to go up on the hill for trail rides and build up some muscle tone. He really enjoys his training sessions. I like the lil' guy! Well..except when he jumps out of the round pen!
I think I'll be a lil' more cautious about what I say from now on!
Coming Soon!!! Another blogger give away...to celebrate my 300th post...WoW...that's a lot of posts!! Stay tuned...it's just 'round the corner!