Naturally, the first thing I did upon my arrival at the yard (well, after a cup of tea and a cake, obviously) was go out and take photos of the new arrival, both for this blog and for the STAGBI Facebook page. I’m currently doing a feature that will run until the autumn on 2013 Standardbred foals; after all, everyone loves looking at foals and who knows, maybe there’s a Little Welsh Dragon/Dragoness winner amongst them, or a future Musselburgh champion! So here he is, the newest member of the Meadowland clan:
In other news, somebody appears to have either swapped our usually docile bunch of donks, or spiked their feed. I missed Monday night’s duties as I was in York trotting races with Smarty, honing my clerking skills ready for the big meetings this summer. However, when I arrived on Thursday The Boss told me that following Big Mac’s antics after my short ride the previous weekend, he’s been a different horse all week. Mac appears to have gone from having a very laid back, nothing-bothers-me attitude, to a buckaroo in the blink of an eye! Apparently The Boss has been jogging him up and down the lane (before heading up the track), and Big Mac has been so full of beans that he’s been bucking in the cart as they go (NOT something he’s done before I hasten to add!). All I could say on the matter was that I hoped he’d put as much effort in on the racetrack at Leominster, where him and Jingo were running for their first time this season on the grass (both in qualifiers).
Things then took another turn for the unexpected when I put the horses on the walker. I’ve been working with these horses since February – they are calm, quiet and very well-behaved. The only time any of them gets remotely excited about anything is at feeding time. But this is how I like them to be. Save it for the racetrack and all that.
So Derek goes on the walker first – lovely. Big Mac goes on second; I shut the gate and turn it on – cue Derek thinking he’s a rodeo pony, and Big Mac deciding the walker isn’t going fast enough, so beginning to tush the paddle in front of him around with his big head! I figured they’d burn the excess energy off while I mucked out, so had a chuckle at their antics and wandered off to find my barrow.
Jingo went on the walker about fifteen minutes later (if he goes on the same time as the others he has a habit of pulling back on the rope and stopping the whole walker – of course the other horses being so laid back all just stand there), as did Bongo, and the first two seemed to have settled by then. The Boss and I finished mucking out and bedding down the four empty stables and then went to fetch them back in. The Boss brought Jingo off first and I fetched Big Mac; as I walked back through the area where we cross tie them and out onto the yard, I heard (and then saw) Jingo shoot forward into the bottom shed, with The Boss hanging on to the end of the lead rope. The noise, and the sight, of Jingo darting into the shed so quickly caused Big Mac to have some sort of mental breakdown and he too decided we were going to bomb off down the yard. The only obstacle was the lorry, which I was headed for as he was looking to dart around the back of it and leave me behind. I made the decision to hang on to his headcollar rather than let him go, because I didn’t know where The Boss was in the bottom shed (i.e. whether or not he’d still got hold of Jingo, whether Jingo was loose, or whether The Boss was stood in Big Mac’s potential firing line). So I had a bit of a fight with Mac (not advisable, he is both big AND strong) and managed to only be partially dragged down the yard and into the shed, where The Boss and Jingo were wrestling in Bongo’s stable (we’d left all four stable doors open). Jingo had moved that fast as he shot into the shed that there was a smell of burning – he’d scraped his shoes so quickly that they must have heated! The minute I let Mac go in his stable he reverted to bucking, squealing and jumping around like a fool. Of course Laddie (the yearling), whose stable is between Mac’s and Jingo’s, decided this was all too exciting for him and could he join in please, so there was him dancing around on his hind legs in the middle like a dancing bear. Chaos!
Thankfully Derek was much calmer than the first two idiots and only spooked at EVERYTHING on the yard, which he has seen hundreds of times before, and surprisingly Bongo was the most sensible of them all to lead in. The Boss then decided to tell me it was the increased oats ration he was feeding them, clearly having its desired effect. I didn’t think oats literally turned horses loopy, but I stand corrected!
After sorting out the rest of the mob, and making sure everyone was fed and watered, I headed off with strict instructions to be back at the yard Sunday morning around half 9, or ten, or half ten (The Boss is not one for specifics). I opted for the earliest time as there was a possibility of a cup of tea before the off then!
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