After 19.5 years, a first
Well, you would think after 19.5 years Huey and I would be out of firsts... guess what? We weren't. M. and I were riding bareback in the field because it is hotter than Zeus' balls out right now and our poor horses with their still-not-shed winter coats were roasting. I also wanted to take it easy with Huey because he was lame again last week so he is on bute so I just wanted to walk to get him some light exercise. He also had a nasty vaccine reaction Wed. night after spring shots. Fever of 103.8 and obviously achy because of how he was acting. It was rather terrifying because for about 1.5-2 hours I was convinced he was going to die. The whole barn ended up reacting, Huey and Mister were the worst (Mister's fever got to 105.2! 106 is the point where the vet said their brain starts to fry). Anyway, 10cc of Banamine an a lot of praying and he was better after a couple hours. So, back to the first (a vaccine reaction actually was not a first). We had walked around the field, and M. wanted to trot Duke some so I stopped and let Huey graze on what little grass there was. As I sat there watching Duke, all of a sudden I realized Huey was sinking! OMG! Um, Huey, what are you doing?! Then I realized he was laying down to roll! Well, he was nice enough to go slowly, so I was able to keep my leg from getting caught under him and was able to hop off as he lay down. He tried to roll, then realized it was not going to be comfortable with a bareback pad on so he ground some mud into his bridle and got up and I grabbed him before he could run off because he looked like he wanted to. I then heard cheering and clapping from the barn and realized we had an audience to Huey's antics. Crazy horse. He has NEVER done that before. I'm just glad it was a bareback pad and not a saddle! But obviously he was done for the day. It was actually pretty hysterical. M. was saying how it was all done in slow-motion and sort of surreal. It was for me too. I'm just glad I didn't get a leg caught under him, that would have really hurt. What a dork!