Darn!

Yesterday when I came home, I decided to turn both horses out for a couple hours before feeding them since they had been locked in their paddocks for several days due to the heavy rains.  But their reactions were definitely unexpected.  Talk about HILARIOUS!  I didn't have my camera with me so I used my phone to try to video the whole thing.  But now I can't figure out how the heck to get it off the phone.  It's too big to e-mail (that's how I usually access the photos I take with my phone) and for some reason it won't even play back on the phone's screen.  Grrrr.   Wouldn't you know -- the ONE time there's been something I REALLY wanted to capture and I get NOTHING!   (Maybe I shouldn't have tried to take a 15-minute video with a phone, huh?)

The star of that performance was, as usual, Duke.  I turned Lizzie out first since I knew that, having been kept in their paddocks for the several days, Duke would be really excited about getting out -- and would harass Lizzie to make her join him in racing around whether she felt like it or not.  So I figured she could move out to the middle of the back pasture away from him and THEN I'd turn him out.  So I waited until she moved far enough from the paddocks and then I opened Duke's gate.  Wow!  He literally FLEW out of there and headed for poor Lizzie.  There is a drainage ditch - well, not exactly a "ditch" but a space about 20 feet wide that slopes down very gradually so you can easily walk or mow across it.  Well Duke was racing out there so fast that when he came to that he jumped across it!  That jump had to have been a good 15 feet or more!  Amazing!  The silly boy acts like he's barely able to go over a 6" post laying on the ground when ridden, but I'll tell you what -- knowing that he was able to jump across a gate that was bent down on one side so that he had to jump UP more than 3 feet and across about 6 feet when he escaped a month or two ago, and now that I've seen him jump across a good 15 or more feet, there will be NO convincing me that he can't do a WHOLE lot more than he pretends he's able to do!

Anyway, once Lizzie saw him heading her way, she raced over behind the cottage to hide from him but no such luck.  He raced around there after her and seconds later they both flew back out into the pasture at full speed!  (God, Lizzie is gorgeous when she runs!  Her gait is sooooo smooth.)

As Duke ran Lizzie around, Rocky (who was out in the dog yard) was barking his head off and racing up and down the fence.  Apparently that pissed off Duke because when he came by there he left Lizzie and raced up to the fence to deal with Rocky!  I thought for sure he was going to race right into that fence, but he came to a screeching halt, at the same time turning around so that he managed to kick at the fence and scare the crap out of Rocky.  That was the first time Duke has ever done anything but just walk up and sniff at him.  But this time, he kicked at him a number of times and when Rocky ran, so did Duke -- up and down the fence line, stopping to kick at him whenever Rocky got really close to the fence. 

After a good 15 minutes of that, Duke finally came over to me where I was standing on the porch next to his stall "thinking" I was videotaping all of that - but no such luck, dadburn it!

I'll tell you one thing, if they get locked in their paddocks for a couple days again, I WILL have my real camera with me when I turn them out!   I'd give anything for you to have seen all of that.   I checked Duke over then to see if he had worn himself out but he was barely breathing hard and wasn't even sweating!    Hmmm.  Down the road he may well wish he hadn't displayed those capabilities while I was watching!