TOABH: I'm A Loser, Baby

Another excellent blog hop topic - this one is right up my alley!

I’m A Loser, Baby

Let’s talk about your horse’s biggest fail.  What did Thunderhooves do that embarrassed you, scared you, shocked you or just annoyed the hell out of you?

Bridget hasn't actually done too much. There's her fondness for holding up traffic so she can pee in the middle of the street, or I guess I could say the baby horse testing moods she can get, or that clinic where she just decided she was D-O-N-E with the whole thing, but really she's pretty quiet and low key about her drama and doesn't tend to cause an embarrassing scene. It's more of a quiet frustration :)

Ginger, on the other hand. Where do I start? So much embarrassing and annoying failure. She picks the best moments to attempt to convince the world she's either: 

A: Wild and Untamed (not true)

B: Beaten Down and Abused (not true)

C: Shamelessly looking to hook up (true)

The time she had a complete meltdown when I rode her in the same indoor as a kids walk/trot lesson. She was 'terrified' of the other horses slowly plodding around, ignoring her. Thanks, Ginger, for making me look like an irresponsible idiot riding the untrained horse with tiny children in the vicinity.

Every time the vet or farrier comes. She tries to tell them she's either been badly beaten by a vet/farrier and/or no one has ever handled her or picked out her feet. Only slightly embarrassing to be fired by your farrier!

To this day, she's still scared of her saddle pad. You know, the one I've put on her hundreds of times? I tried the whole sacking out thing way back when and it only served to confirm her worst fears, that the saddle pad has a life of it own and may at any time decide to attack. So, we agree to disagree and I toss it on normally and ignore her antics. Her gesture of good faith is to stop being 'scared' after it actually touches her. Until my next ride, that is. Or, heaven forbid, it's in the wash and I pull out a slightly different one. We're cool with tarps and blankets and things, so obviously a farrier must have beat her with a saddle pad when she was a wee little baby and caused PTSD, right? ;)

Poor downtrodden pony

Whenever I ride with a new coach, be it a local lesson or in a clinic. She's 'scared' of them (read: knows they're going to make her work and attempts to run far, far away). She convinces them I've been lying about actually doing things like, you know, riding her. Until the next lesson. Then we're all friends and it's all good. But I still resent that wasted $50+ lesson fee, Ginger. That's a lot of horse treats, just sayin' ;)

This awesome display of the killer jumper instinct she has is a bit of a lowlight too. Maybe a tiny win since she's just showing us how she theoretically could have owned that thing (if she wasn't scared of it), not actually attempting the jump itself or anything

She's so sweet, and so pretty/innocent looking with her big eyes that people totally buy in and feel all sorry for her and I look like I'm either a big meanie or just totally clueless. Thank goodness anyone that actually knows us knows her love of drama and has seen the 'magical' transformation to nicely trained pony once she knows the game's up.  These days, I tend to be somewhat cynical of some of the poor abused ponies' stories and suspect they may, in fact, just be trying to take over the world :)

Older pic and I've long forgotten the context, but not too much of a stretch to imagine I was re-telling some embarrassing Ginger moment from my ride while she innocently avoids direct eye contact