Built tough, and all those other tag lines

Whenever I walk into the barn and see one of our horses with a bell boot hanging by one strand of Velcro, or with an ear poking through a hole that has mysteriously appeared at the top of their fly mask, I think of all those commercials for tough products. Toughskins tough. Ram tough. Companies should run all those products through a couple of days in a horse's daily life and we'd see how tough they are!

Regarding the bell boots, my daughter just called to say that Bestie had come in with one bell boot inside out, sort of like a little rubbery cup around her ankle, and one bell boot completely missing. She immediately assigned blame for this situation to me, since I had rashly stated just a few days ago, "Wow, we've set a new record with these bell boots. We've had them for AGES." I should've known better. It's like when our farrier whispers to me, "Dude's feet look pretty good," because he knows to proclaim that out loud surely would invite disaster of some sort.

On the day I mucked stalls a few weeks ago, one of our barn boarders called to ask that we please check on her horse periodically to make sure he didn't "freak out" while outside. (It was hot and buggy.) Honest to God, we checked on him every ten minutes, frequently remarking on how good he was being and how amazed we were by this. We let our guard down to go in the tack room and eat donut holes for a few minutes. In that time--a scant few minutes, he somehow managed to rip a big gash in his fly sheet, which ended up looped around his back legs. The good news is that when we peeked out at him and discovered this unfortunate situation, he was still happily walking around his field grazing, just with very mincing short strides in the back. He looked like his back end was swaddled in a sleeping bag or something.

Maybe I'm just a little superstitious, but here's how I feel:
Never say with satisfaction, "There, that'll hold him." Because it won't.

Never say, "She's been so good this week, we'll do GREAT at the show." Because you won't.

Never say, "Oh, he's not afraid of anything." Because he is.

Say, "She's a nightmare to load; it can take HOURS." And it won't.

It's like they KNOW, and they're just waiting to do the opposite of what you expect and/or want. Just to keep you on your toes.

Life with horses is NEVER boring.