The Awesomeness of Me

Sometimes I surprise even myself.  It all started yesterday, at the barn's Halloween party.  It was a cold, blustery and rainy night (it was a dark and stormy night....oooooooh) and the barn was bustling with activity.  The kind of activity that can terrify ponies.  Costumes were being thrown around, the sound of glitter spray cans being shaken reverberated down the aisles.  Some horses were restless, pacing in their stalls.  I pulled Tessa out of her stall, away from her dinner.  This elicited pinned ears, a wrinkled muzzle and a half hearted attempt to walk to the other side of her stall, followed by a deep, dejected sigh as I slipped the halter on.  She made one last grab for a mouthful of hay and followed me into the aisle way.

She hadn't been ridden in two days, so I took her in to the arena to see if she needed to blow off steam.  I'm glad I did because the arena had been decorated.  You'd think cobwebs wouldn't be that scary to horses who live in barns, but our barn is pretty clean and Tessa had not seen cobwebs *that* big.  Where the mounting block was had been transformed with hay bales, pumpkins and corn stalks.  The other mounting block had giant cobwebs and corn stalks on it as well.  This left one mounting block.  The one in the (cue scary music) GOAT OF DEATH corner.

Fairy wings AND polo wraps?  Oh, poor pony.

You can the spooky pumpkins in the corner.  

My daughter as Tinkerbell, meeting the fairy pony.

Fancy costume!

This horse was Pepe Le Pew.  If you've ever seen Pepe Le Pew and then watched this horse canter when he's hyped up, it would all make sense.

Look at me!  In a line up!  Later, there were more horses and we had to squish closer. Tessa wanted to say hi to everybody.

But at this moment, the mounting block situation was the least of my concern.  I didn't buy a 14.3 hand horse for nothing, after all.  Mounting from the ground was not an issue for us.  Our issue at the moment was Tessa and the cobwebs.  She snorted.  She froze.  She walked backwards.  I tried to walk her by them, but she scooted sideways with loud snorting.  I wasn't worried.  Instead, it was kind of hilarious.  I felt bad for how scared she was of them, but she was so genuinely  worried that it elicited more of an 'awww, you poor baby' feeling from me.  I ended up putting her on a lunge line and just having her trot around until she started to relax.  It really only took about five minutes when she realized that she was going to have to work if she wouldn't walk by the items.  I got her to the point where she would walk by them, but with her head still watching.  Just in case that pumpkin suddenly grew legs and jumped out at her. 

I know this is super blurry, but my husband didn't get a good shot and this was the best costume. This is the Swedish Chef and her horse dressed up as a Swedish Meatball.  Since he's a Swedish Warmblood this was a pretty awesome costume.

The awesome moment came later.  The awesome moment came after putting pink polo wraps on all four legs and having her randomly kick out because they felt so weird on her (this was only the second or third time she'd ever worn them).  The awesome moment came after spraying her tail neon pink and trying to attach giant fairy wings to her saddle (didn't work, finally gave up because they kept flopping backwards and tickling her).  The awesome moment came when I went into the arena, filled with scary props and now also filled with ten other horses in costumes, some with billowing sheets, some with wings and some with crowns, and I got on my horse.  In the GOAT OF DEATH corner, no less.  Oh yes, I got on using the mounting block by the goat.  And then I rode my pony around a spooky arena with a whole bunch of other horses.  And then we all lined up, which my pony had never done.  She was disappointed to find out that lining up right next to another horse did not involve touching noses and saying hello.  She was probably wondering how come I didn't want her to talk to anybody.  She just loves to be social and was so excited to hang out with all the other horses.

I didn't do anything besides walk, but I walked without a death grip on my oh crap strap.  I walked on a loose rein.  We just ambled around in an arena full of ponies and pumpkins and scary, flapping cobwebs.  And I wasn't scared....mostly.