The Howie Chronicles

At least I know Howie has a good memory! We are in our lesson the other week, everything is good, it is almost over and a friend stops by that used to ride in our lesson months ago. You have to understand Howie hasn't seen Kory for months and months but she used to feed once a week and she doted on him and just made him feel all special and snuck him treats whenever possible. So here I am, poor unsuspecting rider, coming around the ring to go to a line of tiny little jumps with my instructor saying do NOT let him bulge through your right leg again! Ok, fine, I get it, so here I come, I see Kory, note it somewhere in my head under: say Hi later when done jumping... and I continue to the line concentrating on keeping my horse straight to the jumps, just like I'm supposed to. We make a nice turn at the end of the ring and I and concentrating hard on keeping him straight by appling more of my very weak right leg and laying my right rein against his neck and opening the left rein, success! Great turn, we are nice and straight lined up right at the middle of the right jump...and then, screech!!!!! His ribcage went a foot to the right, and we barely made it over the right side of the fence. I thought we just might jump the standard. And I knew, I knew, exactly what happened. I was laughing all the way to the second fence, which was also a disaster. Howie saw Kory! And he was going to go say Hi and get his treats! No two ways about it. Of course we had to jump the line again, and I managed to keep him straight and it was fine. Then we went over to say Hi, and guess what happened, Kory told Howie he was beautiful and then reached in her pocket and gave him a treat. My horse, the elephant!

It was a major jailbreak. Four horses, two escapees, one poor man on the ground, and Howie ends up wiping out on the blacktop. Can you say Ouch! Road rash galore. Actually it could have been much, much worse. Jason could have been seriously hurt, instead it was just his pride. But one guy against 4 large geldings hungry for their breakfast, really, it wasn't a fair fight. Howie is a follower and when Spud pushed through the gate and took off for the barn, Howie followed along. Unfortunately, he is still trying to figure out where his legs go, can we say his middle name is Grace? So when he hit the blacktop his feet came out from under him and down he went. His shoulder took the worst of it but he has little boo boo's all along his left side. I just am so thankful it wasn't any worse. He could have broken his shoulder, hip, pelvis etc. I just hope he remembers not to go running h@ll bent for leather on blacktop again!