It's Lissell's World ...

... and we're definitely just living in it!

This mare never ceases to amaze me with her overall level of ridiculousness.  Here's the latest story ...

Lissell got to play around at Novice on Saturday and was spot on spectacular in the jumping phases.  I'm pretty sure she found the smaller jumps a bit boring, and possibly borderline offensive.  But we both had fun running and jumping again, so that's all that matters.  Unfortunately she yanked a shoe off on cross country and somehow banged her right front ankle, because it swelled up pretty bad at the trailer. After a little further investigation with the help of GRC's photos, I figured out that she yanked it off between going down the mound and after the whiskey barrels.  It still didn't make sense to me why her ankle was so big, so I looked at her cross country boots, and sure enough, there's a crack in the protective lining.  Mystery solved, yes.  But it doesn't help the fact that Lissell is sore and not completely sound.

So we decided to leave her in yesterday during the day with Kelley's fancy EquiFit standing wraps and a Rebound hoof pack on that right front hoof.  I go out in the afternoon to unwrap her, evaluate her soundness and decide if she can go out with her buds, or if I need to keep her confined to prevent further injury.

And this is where the ridiculousness starts ...

I grab the lunge line and head to our nice, fluffy outdoor arena to take her for a spin.  She walks for about half a circle before dropping her head, sniffing the fluffy footing, and going down for a roll in the sand.  No biggie though, she's done this once before.  Except ... this time she rolled out of her flimsy grooming halter.  Again, I'm not worried, she'll just stand up and wait for me, right??  Not this time!  Instead, she drops again and gets the other side nice and dirty.  Stands up, and as I walk towards her, trots off.  At this point I'm thinking, "Well crap, now I'm going to have to chase her around the entire farm."  Except, being the good(?) girl that she is, she stays in the ring and basically lunges herself.  But anytime I got near her, she would quietly spin away and trot off in the opposite direction.  Much to the amusement of Kim, Pat, Kelley and Scott (you know that you always need an audience for your most ridiculous/embarrassing moments).

 

You may ask yourself, "Oh, maybe Margaret practices natural horsemanship and her horse free lunges routinely."  No, no, my friends.  This is not a product of supreme training.  This is a product of Lissell thinking that she's entirely too funny.

I think this little game of cat and mouse lasted for about 5 minutes.  At no point did she set foot outside of the arena.  But she just had no interest in ending the game.  Not even Kim leading her handsome gelding Riley over to the fence could distract her from her mission, which was surely to simply amuse herself for a bit of time.  Thankfully, we were all laughing with her (some harder than others).  Eventually, Lissell went over to say hello to Pat, and Pat was able to grab her long enough for me to slip her halter back on.

The good news is that she looked pretty sound and got to go out with her girls.  Meanwhile, I don't think I've laughed that hard in a long time.  Thanks Lissell!