Storytime Sunday

This is a bit of a disaster story, it's funny now but at the time I was so devastated.

I was about 14/15 years old at the time this occured and it was my first big dressage competition that I was competing in with Toby. When we arrived we pulled up in to an area that didn't have any room to tie up next to the float so we opted to tie up to a rail, however we didn't take any bailing twine so had to tie up directly to the rail.

Toby hated being tied up on a good day let alone at a new place with lots of things going on. At that time I did not have the skills nor the guidance to know how to teach him to correct this behaviour.

So in typical Toby fashion he pulled back........

But that isn't the end of the story. At the time he pulled back I was painting black it on his hooves. So as he pulled back and then freaked out as he was tied to something solid the black it went everywhere. Yep everywhere, including me. I was covered in it. Including my brand new jodphurs that my mum had saved up for and spent a fortune on.

They were ruined. No saving them.

Needless to say the rest of the day was a disaster as I was so upset that I couldn't think straight. I now have learnt skills to be able to deal with these types of situations and ensure that I pass these skills on to all my students so that if they ever find themselves in stressful situations they are well equipped with skills to be able to deal with it.

Oh and never ever tie a horse up to something solid, always ensure they are able to break away if they decide to pull back.