When will I learn to get out of harm’s way?

When will I learn to get out of harm’s way?

It was such a beautiful, mild, mid 70’s kind of day.  Sasha and I walked outside to give the horses some oat bagels and carrots for a treat. We talked to them, stroked their coats and enjoying their company. As I was stroking Maggie’s coat, I was secretly thinking to myself, ”This country living is peaceful”, can’t get this in the suburbs”.

Meanwhile, in the background, Lonnie was staking the ground and connecting the roping to it, which he often does, to give the horses more fresh grass to eat. We call it the “Temporary Pasture”.  It was surrounding Sasha and I, leading to the gate in which Lonnie could be able to simply open it and the horses would walk out and into the fresh grass area to graze. Otherwise, like in the past, we would take the lead rope, hook it to their harness and walk them out to the temporary pasture that was too far out to connect to the gate. After we fed them the treats and enjoyed their company for a few minutes, we headed back toward the house, walking through the temporary pasture to get to that point.

Then in the not so far background I heard Lonnie say,”Ok, come on out” Sasha and I looked up at the same time, and Sasha panicked and yelled, ”MOM, LOOK! Because I was already looking, she meant, they are running in our direction, all three of them. They went from a walking mode to a stampeding mode in seconds flat, as if they were at the races and they just heard the starting gun shot. I tried to calm her down within the few seconds we had before they reached us and said, ”It’s ok, just move over, get out of their way”. Luckily we were next to a tree at that point and Sasha jumped behind the tree. A smart decision made quickly.

One horse, Rebel, ran to the right of the tree and the others,(all of them weighing over 900 pounds each), ran to the left of the tree, RIGHT WHERE I WAS STANDING! All I had time to do in those few seconds was to position myself into the center of the two horses running right in my direction, and pray that they didn’t knock me over and trample onto me. And at the same time, I naively thought, surely they will stop before they get to me. Maybe to see if I had any treats left to give them? But Noooo, THEY DID NOT STOP.  They did slightly separate in the attempt to go around me, but Maggie didn’t quite have enough room between the tree on the right side of her and me on the left side of her. So, the broad side of her body banged into me at full speed, and I was thrown over a few feet, while on the other side of me, Nitro swooshed past me at full speed but slightly veered off to his left just enough so as to not run into me. Unbelievably, I was still standing, but Maggie’s hoof clipped the back of my leg and cut it and in an instant a bruise swelled up and appeared under a cut. THANK GOD, it was a minor injury. It gave me shivers to think of what could have happened.

The odd thing is that about five more feet ahead of them, they ran up to the rope and made a dead stop. I was so shocked, that they stopped dead on for the rope, but not the two people that were just feeding them treats just minutes prior to their blast off run. Ya know, my thoughts were correct, you can’t get all this in the suburbs”. When will I learn to get out of harm’s way?