Remember I said that I was going to get a lot of pictures of Gilly at the horse show??? Well, it didn't happen and I am so mad at myself for it! Grrrrr!!!The day didn't start out good and that should have told me that it was only going to get worse. Kim couldn't get here on time with the trailer, misadventures at home so we were late getting started. When she pulled up her boxer was running behind the trailer, strange?! We loaded all of Gilly things; buckets, water, tack, our lunch, cameras....yes, I had TWO cameras with me!!!
OK, so the trailer is loaded now lets get the big boy out to load up. I got him out walked him up to the trailer and he promptly side stepped around to the other side. OK, Gil get into the trailer, nope, side stepped to the other side and behind the door. What the heck is wrong with you??? Last time he loaded fine, just walked up and into the trailer and started eating his hay. Not this time.......we worked with that darned horse for over an hour before we finally got his sorry butt in there!!!
So we start out, can't go fast, on a gravel road and pulling a trailer and what do we see running behind up.....Kim's dog! Well, living out here in the country and down in a hollow our cell phones don't work. We couldn't call her husband to come and get the darned dog. Mike is running the chipper so he couldn't hear us if we stopped and yelled to him; so we tried to keep going and hope that she would go home. What am I saying, the dog kept coming and running in front of the truck; now there is no where to turn around so we had to stop, pick her up, she is covered with mud and take her with us to the top of the hill where hopefully one of our cell phones would work. NOT!!! We had to drive another half mile, we are almost three miles from the house now, before we could get her husband on the phone. He was supposed to be watching the dog, obviously he was NOT! It's now after 10 in the morning, we were supposed to be there at 10.....that's not happening. I had to call my instructor to tell her we would be late.
Finally we are back on the road with the horse, yes, he's still back there and as quiet as can be. What was all the fuss about getting into the trailer, who can say, he doesn't move when riding. We get there and unload him, oh, great! He has decided to poo in the trailer but it's mashed all over the door and his butt and tail!!! GILLY!!!! So I try to rinse it off but he is hopping around because he sees all the horses there. We are out in a field and there aren't a lot of trailers and horses but he can see them at the arena across the race track from us. Thank goodness his tail is black and you couldn't see that some of it was still green! :-(
So I get one picture of him, above, standing by the trailer. We started walking him toward the arena where all the activity is.......OH BOY, OH BOY, OH BOY!!!!! he is saying look at all the horses!!! He didn't know where to look first, the paints and palominos caught his eye the most. None of them paid him any mind, he whinned, nickered and shorted but they all ignored him. He watched for awhile then settled down somewhat to just look.
Kim and I walked him across the race track to some trees and there were some other horses here too. The picture above was taken there; Gilly is looking toward the race horse barn where there was some activity there too. (check out my jeans in the picture. I tapered the legs and sewed on some synthetic leather for patches, works very well and the price was right!!)Back at the trailer I saddled him up, no, not me going to ride, my instructor is. I thought he was just a little too wound up for my liking so I stayed on the ground. Glad I did too, he got spooked twice but Vicki didn't fall off, of course, she is an excellent rider. Someone through a fork full of manure over the fence right at him, he jumped of course and the dumb woman never even said "sorry" just continued to through more over the fence! After that some crows flew out of some tall grass and that gave him a fright. Then all was well and he settled down and Vicki had a good ride.
This is the part that I hated missing the pictures or video, I could have done either. They had a 15 minute break in classes so anyone could ride in the arena. Vicki took Gilly in for a ride. WOW!!! He didn't know what to think of all the horses milling around him going all directions. The look on his face was priceless!! When a big group walked toward him then passed him he wanted to go with them! That look was just too funny! But I missed it, how??? Someone was asking me about him and instead of talking and photographing at the same time, I just ran my mouth.....grrrrrr! Vicki got him moving and paying attention to her instead of what was happening around him. He was trotting beautifully and cantering......and I got not one picture. Kim didn't either, darn it!
After his ride I sponged him off with some cool water, gave him a good drink of water and let him cool out while we ate lunch. After walking around a bit more we were tired, hot and ready to go home. Do you think Mr. Gilly was???? He started the same trailer shenanigans as before, running from side to side and would not get into the trailer. A few times he would step his front feet in and just stand there. If you tapped him with the stick he would back out and just give you a look that made me want to choke him!!! "You can't MAKE me! La la la la la!!!" What a brat a 1,200 pound brat at that, now how do you move something that size when he say, "NO WAY"! It didn't help any either that two scruffy kids and their ponies were running back and forth where he could see them, the parents standing there watching us fight with Gilly and not saying a word to the kids. Some people are so ignorant!!!
After over an hour for this, finally a couple stopped, they had been showing too and gave us some help; plenty of others had just gone past and looked but not offered to help. We finally got a lunge line and put it around his butt and pulled a little and he went right in. He didn't know what to think of the man who came over, he looked like he wasn't going to take any guff from Gil and Gil's eyes were pretty big. He said, "OK, this guy looks like he is going to kick my butt so I'll get in now". We shut the butt bar and he just stood there eating his hay and resting one hind foot like nothing had gone on!!!
We arrived home without further incident!!! But Gilly had to stand in the trailer until it was all unloaded for being such a fine horse all day! Then he had made another mess in there that I had to scrub out, thanks so much Gilly!!!
This is the kind of stuff that just makes you want to beat the living pee out of a horse, not that it would do any good but BOY can they make you CRAZY!!!! So now we have to go back to trailer loading school and knowing Gilly he will just walk in like he has done all along when I don't want to go anywhere!!! They know and they know how to push your buttons too!!!!!
THE END!!!
P.S. Pokey says he can't see what all the fuss is about, no way is HE going to get into the trailer, there's no need too!
