Dang it! Stonewall bucked me off at the field trial and I have NEVER been bucked off a horse! NEVERRRRR nevernevernever NEVER. I was so MAD at HIM. I had this strategy all planned out, got it all strategized with people I knew, the plan was like this, ok, to avoid the way stonewall gets too excited, we will position ourselves in the very rear of the throng, so they will go out and bottleneck and we will hang back and then we wont be in the starting gate madhouse where horses act like nuts all crammed in together with dogs and men yelling and blowing whistles and 300 horses... so we hang back.
It was great! We were about five hundred yards behind the bottleneck and they were just going nuts up there and then they fanned out so we were gonna go on and mix in and we were gaiting so fun wheee hoooo across the field, hoppin bushes and logs and HERE COMES a guy who was LATE and trying to catch up and now I know WHY they don't want non gaited horses at field trials, cause the man let that horse go into a full blown gallop. Stonewall started jigging sideways a perfect 4-beat rack at approximately 20 mph, i aint kiddin you, witnesses verify they have never seen a horse that could rack absolutely perfectly sideways at such smoothness and speed... all the while wanting to turn and what?? face his attacker?? See if he knew him from summer camp?? run at him so I could throw a lance? WHAT?!?!? So instead of taking him into a one rein anything, instead of doing anything at all effective, this is what I, rocket scientist equestrian, did to stop a 100% guaranteed train wreck while there was like plenty of time to stop it if I had only thought a minute--- I started yelling STONEWALL! STONEWALL! STONEWALL!! and pulling both reins so his head got higher and higher and higher and his mouth gaping perfectly open, I could see it real clear, i could see his tonsils in fact because his head was about an inch from my face, head sideways so he could watch the horse coming, eyes wild, whites showing, and me STONEWALL! and he times it perfectly so that when the horse comes up on us, i really think his intent was to kick him both barrels but what he did was throw his rear end actually higher than his own head. So I was launched, but this thought actually came to me with such clarity it was almost as if someone shouted it in my head---NO I AINT FALLIN!!!" and I threw my arms around his neck as I flipped over his shoulder, i mean a perfectly executed gainer, landed on my feet, then slammed into the dirt. I had on my helmet!!! YAYYYYYYYYY. I was not hurt! I do my own stunts! About twenty people stopped and jumped off to see if I was ok, and the man on the galloping horse was just apologizing over and over and begging me to let him help me back on the horse and then this woman said "oh she probably wants to go on back," then looking at me with her eyebrows all wrenched in pity and abject compassion "Don't you want to go back?" I looked at the man and said "I need to get back on him" So he is sorta shoving my big middleaged self back up in the saddle and the woman says "She probably wants to go back," and my husband who had jumped down and grabbed stonewall said my teeth were clenched and as the man heaved me into the saddle I said "No &^%&^% I aint going back!" and everybody laughed. And I went on. and no, he never calmed down. But he didnt do that again cause every time he even tried to look sideways I would slap his neck and scold and kick him and make him go faster... now my back is sore. why do we DO this?? I think because afterwards I asked our friend Theo if he was embarassed when I fell (he is the one who invites us every year) he said "why? Stonewall was still the flashiest smoothest horse there even if he is crazy" and laughed. but i did have a lot of the old "you need a tie down" and "you need a walking horse bit" comments... i was almost tempted. gosh I get so discouraged with him! But he is only 5 and a half! maybe he will get calm when he is seven. jaspar did... Janice -- yipie tie yie yo
