Part II: Hoof Face

After Pangea's successful swim session, I bathed her up, scraped her off, and tied her up outside in the sunshine to dry off. She was sparkling, shiny, and.... pawing up a huge dust cloud. Her gleaming socks? Covered in red dirt. Her gleaming coat? Dingy and crusted. Watching her digging a neverending hole to China, my frown increased. From somewhere behind me, I heard a voice chime in. "Why don't we start hobble training her?" I turned around, thought about it for a moment, and agreed. I am not a fan of hobbles - to me, they looks like tendon injuries waiting to happen - but sure, why not. She's a smart mare, what could go wrong?

Yep. Famous last words, as usual.

Pangea showed no interest in the hobbles at first. She was unphased by them flapping around her legs, touching her, and being attached to her. I was warned that horses with hobbles on for the first time do any number of things, from leaping and rearing to falling over completely (why are we doing this again?), so to just be prepared for whatever comes next. And I thought I was... and I was wrong. Without warning, she reared and struck out with both front feet, and was overtop of me before I even knew what was happening. She caught me with both front feet on the back of the head and neck on her back down. Hard.

Momentarily stunned, glasses knocked to the ground, I could only stumble out of the way as she flailed, watching my glasses get stomped repeatedly into the ground through my blurred vision. After a moment, she stopped, immediately graduating from confusion to understanding about the hobbles. I retrieved my glasses, awkwardly bent them back into place, and stood blinking for a moment. After we determined that I did not have any sort of apparent head injury, we did what any horse people would do. We continued the training session.

After only a few minutes, she was moving each leg independently, the wheels in her brain turning intelligently. As for me, I went home feeling a bit unwell with a giant goose egg on my head, broken glasses, and a few abrasions on my face and neck, but otherwise I am fine.

How about next time I try actual training instead of a shortcut in order to correct a vice? Yeah, that's a thought.



As a side note, isn't it nice that all of Gogo's old things fit Pangea?



It rained on and off for a few days and was a bit chilly last week, so she spent lots of time getting herself absolutely covered in filth everywhere that she could outside of her blanket. (At least she stayed SOMEWHAT clean under it.)

Nice mane....



And non-sarcastically, nice NECK! Looking quite a bit better already, don't you think?




And there are STILL more updates to come!!