Tully managed to escape from his paddock today. Tully is one of the horses that I’ve been helping Jay with, he’s a light brown little pony with this long, black mane and he’s the most beautiful little thing. But underneath that cute surface, he is vicious. I don’t think that I exaggerate when I say that he’s the poniest pony that I’ve ever met.
And for all of you who don’t know what I mean, ponies are generally known for being extremely intelligent but stubborn, lazy and real gluttons with good memories. Which means that if you once let then get away with something, they’ll milk that until you pull your hairs out, they’ll do anything for a bite and will generally want to go in the opposite direction from where you intended. Jay calls it pony head, and Tully’s really got it. I have to really bite my tounge not to scream out my frustration when he refuses to do such a simple thing as turn when it doesn’t suit him.
Well, today he broke the fence. The fence has three rails, and by putting his head through the two lower rails and then lifting up his body, he managed to brake the middle rail and walk right through the fence. His paddock companions, three large thoroughbreds, watched him jealously from the hole in the fence (that was much too small for them) while he walked right out into freedom.
All other escapees that we’ve had (cause we’ve had a few during my stay here) have all spent their time in freedom running around, playing hard to catch for a while before they let us put halters on them, but not Tully. His goal with escaping was the green fresh spring grass, and as that grew right by the paddock fence, he just had to take a few steps before putting his head down to eat. And he was so busy chewing the delicate grass that he barely noticed when I came up to him, got a halter on him between mouthfulls and pulled him off the grass.
The rest of the day he had to spend in his stall, thinking about what he had done, repenting. But he looked just as cheerful a usual. He’s a really charming thing, but oh, SUCH a pony.
Katja Malmborg 