Lumps and Bumps

     Eventually, with hard work and time well-spent, we had all the colts working well and some of the older horses too.  One horse remained to be worked. He was an older gelding that had been ridden years back and somehow had escaped everyones' attention.  He went by the unlikely name of "Knights" and really seemed to have nothing special about him.  I suppose his name may have come from a previous owner. In any case we brought him in one day to start working with him. Doug and Ken decided to "pony" this one off of Big Goldie.  Doug saddled up Big Goldie and Ken got Knights decked out and handed Knights' lead shank to Doug before mounting the bay horse.  Doug was inexperienced at this, and although Goldie could have easily pulled Knights around, Doug never really asked for all Goldie had.  Knights dug in and refused to move one inch!  On this day. Ken lost his temper and jumped off Knights and kicked him in the belly to get him started.  Well did he ever!

A horse pulling back on a rope is bound to come forward sometime, and it is best to be out of the way when he does.  When Knights jumped forward, Doug and Goldie were in the way and he came right up and seemed to be giving Doug a hug!  Except, his hooves were beating a tattoo on Doug's back!  As quickly as he could Doug got off Goldie, once on the ground, he fell and actually went on his hands and knees to get out of there!
Doug ended up over in the round pen panting like he had run a marathon.   He was one scared cowboy that day! Luckily, there was no real damage done although Doug would sport a few bruises on his back. He obviously had thought he had "bought the farm" and was meeting his demise--all he could say was "Those raggedy hooves! All I could feel were those raggedy hooves!"
  But we all got hurt every so often, it was a rough work dealing with one thousand pound adversaries.  My first injury came when I joined a lesson Mary was giving to the twins. There were a few small jumps set up and I was riding Wavy in a Western saddle.  Trust me, there is a reason English jumping saddles do not have horns on them!  As I went over a jump Wavy took to bucking and the horn on my saddle slammed into the palm of my right hand and popped a bone in there.  It hurt like crazy but later in the house Pops grabbed my hand unceremoniously and pummelled it until I thought I was going to faint and declared I had not broken it.  The next day I went to hospital for exrays where again I was told there was no break but on a later Xray by a doctor he assured me I had so broken a bone.  By that time it was healed ,but to this day I have a hard bump on the back of my hand.
    Around that same time, I was guiding a group of children and counsellors from a camp called Y-tic.  The kids wanted to "run" and against my better judgement I agreed.  We were nicely loping along when BANG! my horse Easter went down like she'd been shot!  She had stepped in a gopher hole and was now on her side and laying on my leg as well.  I lay there with many thoughts racing through my head. Had she broken her leg?  Had she broken MY leg?  How was I going to get out of this one?   A few moment later Easter took things in hand and very carefully got up and shook herself.  I got up much more clumsily by hanging onto a stirrup.  Some of the children were still with me but not a counsellor in sight-not even the one that had ridden by me as I lay there casually asking if I was OK.  Sure I was, I was just doing a "trick" for the kids you fool!  I looked at the house, making a wish to be anywhere but where I actually was and then finding the horse was okay and I was moving still, I mounted with difficulty to get these kids back home.  There was still a job to be done after all.
   The next calamity I had with Easter was again about the same time.  One does not ride well with a variety of small injuries.  I had taken Easter out bareback to assist some riders and returning home, found Jay beside me on Sheba.  We loped side by side, thinking we were in control, but Easter had "Race!" in her mind. I told Jay to pull up to nip the race in its bud.  He replied "I can't" and off I thundered past him.  I could not use both hands to pull the horse in and we were headed straight for a three bar gate!  I prepared myself to jump it bareback but Easter at the last minute decided to change direction and go through the partially open gate.  She misjudged and hit the gatepost squarely with her chest. I did a somersault over her
head and scraped my back down each rail to arrive in a sitting position with one rein in my hand.  I do believe I was "out" for a short time, but I was still alive and that was good!  I was also glad I had hung onto a rein just like Pops always lectured me to do.  An ex-policeman had seen the whole thing and thought I should go to hospital but I had a Dude String to run and there was no one to take over, I continued throughout the day, albeit somewhat hurting,