My mother-in-law told me years ago, "When you're dealing with horses, it isn't if something is going to happen, it's when." I've never forgotten those words of wisdom, and even if I did, I would be reminded of them time and again. Our most recent reminder happened on Friday to Britt's horse, Mag-Doll. Nothing serious, thank you Lord, and by that I mean it could have been a whole lot worse. But it was definitely not something we would have wished for, that's for sure. The picture of Britt and Maggie above was taken just minutes before the ones below... For some bizarre reason we still don't understand, Brailey's horse Tex tried to back out of the trailer when we got home from riding, even though he was in front of Maggie, and even though we have loaded and unloaded at least a hundred times this summer the exact same way. This caused Maggie (who has been known to pull back a few times before) to do the same thing, but she hadn't yet been untied, so she broke her lead rope and flew out the back of the trailer, hitting her face on the top of the trailer in the process. You see below the result of this particular five seconds in our lives. The two little B's and I stood there for that five seconds in stunned disbelief while it all unfolded. We all kept our cool, got her to the vet straight away, and he fixed her right up. And even though it doesn't look very pretty, she is just fine. Britt was even able to ride her on Sunday, and once again, she was a rock star in the arena and took perfect care of her little boy. Poor Mag-Doll...!
The picture above was right after her stitches and staples. Below is from Sunday, a mere two days later. The swelling has already gone down quite a bit.
We spent all day Sunday at our first Western Horsemen of Oregon (WHO) show, and had a really good time! The little B's are liking the games, and Brailey is more inspired than ever to become a barrel racer. I filmed all their runs on my phone and had to take these few pictures on it, as well, because my new camera battery died - I still have to buy a spare. In any case, it was a great day! Maggie was even a little fresh (probably from the grain she's been getting with her meds the past couple of days), so Brailey had to "tune her up" for Britt. After Brailey rode her down, Maggie was a perfect angel the rest of the day and took excellent care of her boy Britt. Now they are inspired and ready to improve on their "gaming." Brady and I enjoyed every second of watching them and even ran into some of our friends - another wonderful summer day to remember. And even though we always try to be careful, we are being more careful than ever, because things can happen in the blink of an eye.
