End of the Hunt Season

Wednesday was the last Walk & Talk of the season. Naturally, Carrie and Barbara wanted to go.

Unnaturally, Carrie set the alarm for 6:15 AM.

I was doing horse chores with the rising sun while the ladies prettied up their ponies.

Pockets was Carrie's ride for the day. This was his chance to show her how he'd behave off property and with other riders.

Maddie was Barbara's ride. She'd done it all before, but had her hair done up this time.

She got a chance to check her reflection off Barbara's car while I held the line.

She seemed please.

Both horses loaded up easily and the ladies were off. .

Pay close attention to the butt-bars. Take a moment to look back up at them if you glanced past earlier.

Carrie pulled in with the trailer while I was getting my archery in between zoom meetings. She was frantic and asked me to hurry and get scissors. Something was wrong.

The ladies were in a hurry to offload. Something had gone wrong and Carrie wanted the horses safely off the trailer to deal with it.

I saw the need for the scissors.

I cut the bar loose and Maddie came off first. She was a little finicky.

She wheeled her butt around sharply and stumbled a little bit off the ramp, but it wasn't a big deal.

Pockets hopped off when I cut his butt bar free.

There had been an oops. Maddie was unclipped at the Walk & Talk, but not offloaded or watched. Somehow, she got her head under the chest bar. It panicked her and she shoved her butt back and somehow got that under the butt bar and wedged the entire apparatus so tightly they held up the entire event. Maddie got herself standing upright, but both horses were flustered.

It took a crew of equestrians to get the butt-bars down and unload them. Then when it was time to go nothing fit the way it should. Carrie used hay ties to quickly make the trailer serviceable, but she was in frantic-mode.

The trailer is supposed to be a trade-in. It's on loan to us, but if something were to happen to it the value would diminish. Carrie was upset and wanted to fix it in a hurry. "We can bend it back! I need your weight!" she said. "We can do this! Let's bend it back."

I hadn't been at the show, so I was a bit calmer and wanted to look at things while she urged action. 

That's not always the right way to do things, but this time it was.

I cleared away some bedding and saw the divider had been lifted up and out of the notch it should rest in. Maddie had lifted the whole thing with enough force to wedge it in elsewhere with friction. Horses are strong.

It was a lot easier to knock the divider out and reset it than it would've been to bend it.

Carrie breathed a lot easier once it was settled. I got to finish my archery sets and go to my next meeting on time. 

The ride itself went fantastic. Carrie and Barbara thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Both equines got two thumbs up for the performances.

And they left two piles to get picked up when it was all said and done.

There's always crap. It's how you deal with it.