Starve.Org White Noise Usenet Archive: "Re: UFO Activities from Biblical Times"

So this morning I packed up and drove down to Gettysburg to meet up with
Tony and some other folks and take Rain for a spin through the
battlefields and whatnot. It was kinda hot, but not too bad--the woods
parts were perfect, anyhow.

I had Ms Rain, Tony was on his Arabian pal, his assistant Kim was on her
TB mare Coco, and then a married couple were on their ponies, an
Icelandic for the gentleman and the Appy pony from our prior trail ride
for the lady. We were rounded out by another rider on a big chestnut
mare. Both ponies were a little naughty for tacking and mounting, so
Tony stepped in to help. The Icelandic was also a handful for his fairly
novice rider and Tony did a lot of coaching on how not to pull back on
both reins, but work him on the trail side to side, etc. Oh, and did I
mention the rider on the Appy pony is six months pregnant??

So, we head out with Tony giving advice to the owners, and things
smoothed out fairly quickly with the Icy once the rider was being a
little more effective with the aids. The Appy was behaving pretty well.

We were on a path that paralleled the road, so we had the treat of many
cars and bikes and motorcycles going by at a small remove--Rain was VERY
good. She was also very good about watching a tour going by on Seugways
(however the heck you spell that--you know, those weird little stand on
them thingies with the biggish wheels and the upright steering column).

Our first real challenge was going by the herd of big red cows. Rain was
horrified by the whole concept, and I put her together with a strong
leg, kept her nose down in front of her and sent her forward. We wiggled
our way past, got some praise, and slowly unwound.

We passed some tour groups on horse back uneventfully, crossed the roads
several times, crossed a little bridge, clambered over and around some
big huge boudlers, including on big flat rock that we rode up onto
across and dropped down off of. Wove through some ditches, did some
mucky bits of trail politely, stepped over logs, went towards the front
and middle and the back without fussing. Yea, Rain. The only thing she
fussed about was when we were on a bit of trail that basically was right
on the shoulder of the road--a guy suddenly opened his car door right as
we were going by and a van tried to whip around him. Rain got very
goosey and started to do The Nose Poke but settled right back down once
I put her together and then I was able to reel her back out fairly quickly.

The pregnant lady was starting to flag, so Tony took a short cut to chop
off a chunk of the last bit of the trail and get us home a little
sooner. I was bringing up the rear when we did our last street
crossing--on a non-horse crossing spot since we were cutting off a
bit--and then I got to find out how Rain behaves when a cop car pulls up
with the flashing lights on in her face. Rain did a little juju dance
but then settled down and stood quietly while the cop started grilling
me about why was I off the trail. Since I was just the caboose, I said,
"uh, just a moment. TONY!?" The cop gave us a lecture but since our hot
and tired pregnant lady was right there he let us off with a stern
talking to.

So now we are almost back, maybe 1/2 to 1/3 of a mile from the trailers.
We are doing that little creek crossing by the cows. Rain was giving
them the stink eye and starting to put her nose up and out, so I brought
her back into hand and sent her on forward. The big bay mare and the
chestnut mare had crossed, Tony was by the side of the creek, I crossed
and went on past the cows in unison with the Icy, me slightly in front,
and the Appy was coming along behind. I am not sure exactly what
happened next, BUT, just as we were coming into the field Rain exploded
forward, the Appy went streaking and bucking by without a rider, the
chestnut mare exploded in the field, Tony passed me somewhere on the
opposite side as the Appy, the Icy was headed up the road . . . you get
the picture. I really was not registering too much about everyone else
just at that moment,ya know?

So I haul Rain's head around to the left, with her nose touching her
shoulder, and we go into Rain As Tornado Mode. She's spinning in these
little teeny tiny fast circles, I've got her head around and am trying
to stay in the middle, and we are sort of winding our tornado way around
in the field between the path and the road (wide swath of field, at
least, rather than 30 feet or something). At some point I note that Coco
has whirled to a stop, Tony has his horse stopped, the Icy is pulled up,
the Appy is galloping back to us, the chestnut is slowing down and
chilling out. And I'm still doing the Tornado Dance with Rain, working
my way back towards the path, one teeny lightening fast circle at a time.

You know that feeling when you are going to come off a spin? You know,
the leg on the outside of the spin is too long, the leg on the inside of
the spin is crunching up in an effort to hold on, and your inside
seatbone is coming across the midline of your saddle in spite of your
best efforts to keep a seatbone on each side? Yeah, I had that feeling.
And I thought, 'damn it, I am not going to fall off because of some
stupid cows and a naughty pony.' And I grunted out some sort of four
letter word that started with S and with a monumental effort I hitched
and heaved and actually hip hopped my inside seatbone back into it's
proper spot in the tack, got my inside leg down and long, and got back
with Rain's centrifugal spin. A few revolutions later we wobbled to a
halt back on the path next to Tony's horse. He hopped off, collected the
Icy while telling hubby to tend to his wife, who was down on the ground
in the tall grass shouting that she had a broken leg. Then he caught the
Appy; the rest of us dismounted, and I held Rain, the chestnut's rider
held the two big mares, Kim had the Icy and the Arabian, and Tony hung
onto the pony.

So we ended up calling 911 and had an ambulance, two cop cars, two park
police, some fire police, and whatnot come screaming in. Rain is
apparently quite calm about emergency vehicles. The pregnant lady was
laughing and joking with the EMT team, and they strapped her up on the
stretcher board and carried her to the road, put her on the gurney, and
whisked her off to the hospital. I think it was not a fast hard fall,
but the pony trod on her leg. No one had that really stressed out body
language that emergency personnel and first responders get when
something really bad is going down. The husband didn't think the leg was
broken, but, they are going to play it very carefully.

So, Tony ponied the Appy back, husband rode back with us and packed up
his pair to go home. We had Gatoraide and chilled out a bit, then loaded
up the horses and Rain went back to spend her last week with Tony and I
came on home.

Eileen Morgan
The Mare's Nest
http://www.themaresnest.com