Final Straw

The horse in training has been for sale for about a month now and I ride him about twice a week.  He finally had someone come out to look at him last night and it went well, the gal seemed to like him and he listened pretty well.  I even brought her through my tiny trail in the back of the property where the pasture will go and he did great.  She is going to come back out with her trainer perhaps this weekend, things were looking up. 

This morning started out like any other, I fed, filled hay nets and I brought the the donkey and the TWH out to the pasture.  I came back in and got the App and the training horse and we went outside.  The training horse spooked a little at the poo box, fairly typical for him but he got over it and we continued to the pasture.  He then spooked at the water trough-turned-veggie garden, something he also spooks at regularly despite multiple desensitization sessions, and ran into me.  Again.  He has done it a couple of times in the past however this time was different.  Instead of bouncing off of me after slamming into me, he kept going, stepped on my foot and drug me almost 10 feet as he continued to try to get away from me.  As I fell down I lost the App, who trotted off to eat grass, and I felt immediate intense pain in my knee. 

I lay on the ground for about 60 seconds, with a death grip on the training horses rope, before finally being able to get up.  My right leg was virtually unusable and I was almost non-weight bearing.  I slowly hobbled and put the horse in the pasture with no further incidents and tried calling for the App.  He continued to graze and when I hobbled sort of close he ran around the pasture fence and then went all the way to the back side of the pasture.  Ugh!  Being that there was absolutely no way I could hobble fast enough to catch him and SO is out of town, I called the neighbors and asked them to help me catch him.  As I walked/hobbled back to the barn to grab a bucket of grain, my leg rolled a little bit and I felt a satisfactory click as, what I assume to be anyway, my knee went back into it's socket.  I could immediately walk better, figuratively speaking, and could easily bear weight on it.  Wahoo!

I grabbed grain and called for the App with no success.  When I finally hobbled over to the far side of the pasture fence, about 200 feet from the barn, I whistled again and the App turned and literally galloped over to me!!!  I was SOO proud of my horse in that he didn't make me and the neighbors fight to catch him for a half hour or so.  I called the neighbors back to let them know but the husband was already on his way over.

I had a short chat with the neighbors and explained what happened.  They offered to take me to the ER but I refused, I am hoping the swelling and pain is from the knee popping back.  I currently am on my crutches and have my compression brace on, I will see how things go.  After I got everyone secure I called RB4, the training horses' owner.  Unfortunately she is in Florida for a family emergency and while I am sure she doesn't need this stress, I couldn't postpone the call.  I told her what happened and that I can't have her horse stay here anymore.  He has hurt me several times and if he had just bounced off of me like he had before it would be one thing but he trampled me and then drug me, it isn't safe for me to have him here.

The training horse will stay here until Sunday when she returns.  I will refund his board and training costs and will trailer him back for free if the people on Sunday don't purchase him first.  Hopefully they show up with a trailer and just take him.  Until Sunday he will stay in the pasture 24x7 so I don't have to handle him as I can't risk being hurt yet again.  I feel really bad about kicking him out and I told her I hope she doesn't take it personally, I am just getting hurt by him and I can't afford to risk it.  Hopefully my knee isn't seriously hurt and I can get back to normal, if nothing else I was supposed to go to a show this weekend and don't want to have to cancel.  Healing from all of 2012's SNAFU's fail.