Funny horse/horse people stories.

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RuthM

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I love a tale and love memories -'specially ones with giggles! Could we stick to funnies where no-one and nothing got hurt?

So to kick off:
I was attending a BSJA show as a groom with a fully working (in ALL respects) stallion that was jumping at said show. The arena is lush with stalls around the outside. My fella had just arrived and I was holding him in a stall. It was prior to the stud season but days had begun to lengthen, none the less he was jumped in a snaffle and I wasn't in the least worried, I knew him, he knew me. My gaffa (his rider) had gone off to do paperwork in the office and me and the lad were enjoying watching the collecting ring activities. Our peace was soon to be disrupted!

A rather large lady with an equally large mare began to reverse her mount into the next stall, mare didn't agree and reversed into our, occupied stall. I had full control but it was certainly beginning to become interesting, of course I warned her immediately that he was entire and her mare was reversing into him! I fairly quickly had my hands full and no-where to go, out was blocked and in was getting crowded. My rapid second warning had got loud and less polite but had no more effect than the first, not even a response. I thought she must be deaf so added volume! Briefly the mare would be re-aligned but always changed her mind and was never taken forward far enough for our escape. At this point by some miracle, and the lad's good grace I did still have control.

Finally large lady responded to my now blatantly rude objections! She said 'You should not bring a stallion to a show who is out of control, the stalls are for everyone!'. I nearly bust a blood vessel, and replied 'Well I didn't anticipate him getting raped!'.

Needless to say, throughout my attention was only focused on the lad and what was happening. I hadn't noticed that people had started to gather until I heard laughter, nor had I noticed a very miffed official coming to my rescue. Large lady had a few principles of good manners explained to her and given the choice to leave or abide by them.

No harm was done, lad jumped well, large lady apparently withdrew. I hope I've managed to write the sight of it - it was just about the most ridiculous event but perhaps needs lad's expression to bring it to light, or the lady and her mount's appearance.
 
My best... aged about 14 on fairly newly bought, poor condition ex-flapper. Went hunting, totally out of control (as horse thought it was a race). Overtook the field, overtook the huntsman, overtook the hounds before eventually managing to stop going up a steep hill... Later on in the day, out of control again so tried to stop behind a small pony with a little boy aged about 6 on it. New horse knocked said small boy off with his head - boy on floor.... turned out it was the huntsman's son. I've never been so embarrassed in my life!
 
Does amaze me really what some people are like :eek:

I have one, still makes me laugh .. :D

I used to longrein my old pony out around the country park as he loved it. So little welshie is happily walking along and we spot a big horse coming our way so I stopped him and started leading him so the longreins wouldn't spook the other horse. My pony was walking along like an angel as always totally fearless but the big horse decided he was the most terrifying thing it had ever seen when we were still quite a way off and went into a complete melt down :p I gave them a very wide berth and even though the rider stayed on I got given evils :confused: really though if you can't get your horse to walk past a pony what chance are you gonna have with the hundreds of dogs around the park?! Did make me laugh though, even my pony looked smug and did a very high squeaky whinny just after we walked past :D
 
Best one I have was when I was in Canada and helped out at a trekking centre. Got a booking for an advanced group of 14 riders so duly went out and brought 16 horses in (2 escorts). However when they turned up there was 15 of them! There wasn't enough time to go and catch another horse, groom it and tack it up so I had to choose between the horses that were in - 2 unbroken 3 year olds, 2 driving horses and the 2 shetlands...

Took the shetland out and spent a brilliant afternoon having to gallop every time the group cantered just to keep up!! One of my best horsey memories :)
 
Broke_But_Happy said:
Best one I have was when I was in Canada and helped out at a trekking centre. Got a booking for an advanced group of 14 riders so duly went out and brought 16 horses in (2 escorts). However when they turned up there was 15 of them! There wasn't enough time to go and catch another horse, groom it and tack it up so I had to choose between the horses that were in - 2 unbroken 3 year olds, 2 driving horses and the 2 shetlands...

Took the shetland out and spent a brilliant afternoon having to gallop every time the group cantered just to keep up!! One of my best horsey memories :)
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Did they need roller skates? Sounds like a happy shetty day!

You can see where Thelwell got his inspiration from...
 
A funny moment which always comes back to me is the time we went pony trekking in Ireland. Anyway the pony my brother was one on took off and he ended up going out the side door so the lad who'd come out with us swapped and rode the pony which had deposited my bro.

Anyway bros luck wasn't in as he fell off his new mount,well the ponies dad and I were on must have took this as a sign and we ended flat out gallop across fields and dicthes ( Dad had never really ridden before!) all I could think of was please let the gate ( which was a 5 bar gate to the yard) be open, luckily it was! We later found out that the ponies were regularly used for pony racing. Poor old Dad, don't think he's ridden since! :p
 
thelwell7.jpg


It's classic but still works!
 
have had many moments over the years but i always remember, with fondness, how my sister and i used to get ready in all the gear, proudly walk through the village with saddle and bridle, brushes etc and come out of the paddock with a grey mule that dragged us through every bush, garden and veg patch! then we progressed to an old cart horse that used to pull the milk floats. that could initially only be ridden whilst following my dad in his car and also used to go into peoples gardens! lol happy days :)
 
One of my funniest was probably when I was on a weeks riding holiday at a riding school (if only we could have afforded a pony when i was young- i envy you all!). Me and my 2 friends were given this huge grey mare to groom all week (it was marked for points) and we knew bad weather was due, so we covered her in coat gloss to make our job easier when she came in covered in mud the next morning- plan worked brilliantly until I discovered I was due to ride her for the bareback session at the end of the week. I carefully applied coat gloss everywhere except the saddle area after that, but my friends had other ideas. Half the bottle of coat gloss was gone by the end of the week, and the mare was hogged so I had nothing to hold on to, she was the bounciest horse ever and round as a barrel. I still have no idea how I stayed on through all the trotting, but finally came off when it was time to practise scissors and around the world!
 
horsemadelsie said:
One of my funniest was probably when I was on a weeks riding holiday at a riding school (if only we could have afforded a pony when i was young- i envy you all!). Me and my 2 friends were given this huge grey mare to groom all week (it was marked for points) and we knew bad weather was due, so we covered her in coat gloss to make our job easier when she came in covered in mud the next morning- plan worked brilliantly until I discovered I was due to ride her for the bareback session at the end of the week. I carefully applied coat gloss everywhere except the saddle area after that, but my friends had other ideas. Half the bottle of coat gloss was gone by the end of the week, and the mare was hogged so I had nothing to hold on to, she was the bounciest horse ever and round as a barrel. I still have no idea how I stayed on through all the trotting, but finally came off when it was time to practise scissors and around the world!
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^^^ Love this!! Reminds me of when I polished my Munchkin's indoor slide with 'magic go faster spray' - she shot half way across the living room with a whopping great smile!
 
I have a story of a funny fall I had! Ethel was only 3 and I hadn't been riding her long but I decided to attempt around the world. Did it and all was good, I was chuffed to bits with her being so good so the next day I decided to show my friend! Got halfway round so I was sitting backwards when I lost my balance, so put my hand on her bum to get my balance back. Well, she took off bucking, with me sitting on her backwards with no stirrups and not holding onto anything, wondering what to do! Eventually she whizzed round the corner, bucked and sent me flying backwards onto the ground. I landed on my shoulder, was in pain but couldnt stop laughing! My friend was in shock and then burst out laughing, poor Ethel was a bit shaken up and seemed to be in shock about the whole thing! She soon got over it but I've not tried it since! :o
 
When I was in London, I used to ride a pony before work. He was being sold to a country home for hacking, so I decided he had better learn how to open the school gate without me having to get off ready for this. He was not keen... so one morning there we were, I was positioning him in front of the gate in the appropriate place, then when I reached for the catch he moved away. Forwards, back, forwards, back we went (he was almost as stubborn as me!)... then on one of our reverse trips I heard an 'eek!' and realised that two PCSOs had decided to walk behind me (I was rather focussed on the gate and hadn't seen them!) and had suddenly had a rather large piebald cob bottom heading towards them at speed!:eek::D

Fortunately, when gates weren't involved he was a little darling and they were very nimble so no harm done:D And we did get the gate open... eventually...:rolleyes: As far as I know he is a happy hacker to this day (couldn't swear to his prowess with gates though);)
 
These stories are great! I can only think of one amusing incident which happened a few years ago, my friend who witnessed it told someone about it only the other day, she found it hilarious at the time and still does! I'd finished riding my boy and was dismounted in our school, friend and another girl had walked in on their boys and we were having a chat when my fella decided to rub his sweaty face down my front. We'd been jumping so I had the pelham on and the hook for the curb chain got caught in the front of my bra! When he found himself attached to me he took off backwards across the school literally carrying me by my chest - feet off the ground :)

Needless to say, when I eventually stopped him and unhooked myself the bra was in two halves, it was a good one too :(
 
I'm thinking of writing a book entitled "Stupid horsey things what I have done". One of the entries I don't think I've posted on here before occurred while on a hack with a young friend. We were plodding through the woods, me on my rock solid (if slightly insane) cob, friend on her little arab pony, joking about this and that, and showing off how little attention we needed to pay too our mounts. Reins were the first thing to go, then stirrups, then finally I threw myself forward onto J's neck, in front of the saddle. He plodded on for two strides, realised his freedom, ducked sideways into the long grass and put his head down to eat. Laughing so hard I couldn't breathe, let alone cling on, I flopped into a massive pile of nettles :cool:

Then there was the time I tried to test my pick up strap at horseball without doing my girth - got stuck half way down, started laughing and had to be thrown back up by trainer... Did the same thing on the cob at home too, by myself... Had to disentangle myself and flop to ground.

Or the time I went to overtake some smartly turned out posh horses on a hack, and the daft cob tripped over his own feet and went face first into the mud :rolleyes: The time I messed up a line to a jump, swung my leg back to avoid taking the jump wing out and kept on swinging it up, right until I dismounted stylishly two strides post fence. The time I thought it would be smart to open the electric fence gate to the jumping paddock without dismounting, giving both of us a shock and (as usual) resulting in an unscheduled meeting with Mr Ground.

Or the time I was doing TREC with a certain person and their horse decided she didn't like the look of a puddle and did a canter-halt emergency stop, depositing rider out the side door as she went :p
 
have just thought of another one, one of many. when my son was younger we went to a fete in tarporley. they had a donkey derby for kids. bare back donkeys that kids sat on at the bottom of a hill then race to the top where the owner was with his wagon and nets of hay. parents can even bet and you get colours! my friend and i thought it would be a laugh to enter our sons, prob aged about nine, ten at the time. anyway theres about seven donkeys at the bottom of the hill all lined up with terrified kids on board. when we let them go half the kids fell off, got bucked off at the bottom of the hill, with parents rolling about laughing. mine clung upside down onto the donkeys neck and his friend ended up sitting on his donkeys ears before sliding off. never laughed so much. all kids fine if not a little bruised! shame everyone so hung up on health and safety as it would not be allowed now.
 
These are great. In my early teens I used to ride a very overweight 12.2 heinz 57 to fitten it up. I always rode it bareback & regularly livened up the hack by doing all around the world in walk & trot as it was like riding a table, often walking & trotting sideways or backwards for my friends amusement. Whilst facing backwards at walk it had a personality transplant & tanked off, covering a field & some woods. I can remember the faces of the poor couple I nearly mowed down as I passed. Cantering backwards is really weird. Then fell off when she did the special pony canter to graze transistion.
Years ago my boss used to train a very refined & lady-like rider & her horse. She was lovely, but the type who referred to a horse weeing as 'passing water' with a red face & blushes. As she wasn't very confident we only ever had horses in the adjoining paddock to the arena during her lessons who could be trusted not to prat around. One day during her lesson we had the old gelding & mare, both light hacks & had been turned out happily for 20+ yrs together. Lady was on her horse & I was riding her show hack with boss teaching on foot. Just after we warmed up the two oldies came to graze near the fence. After a few minutes mare started squirting at gelding, I kept trying to catch bosses eye. End result was the old couple going at it for the first time ever, right next to the fence accompanied with lots of grunting. And far to big to miss. Boss climbed the fence to Chase them off just for it to start again. Was hilarious but very difficult to keep a straight face with lady beetroot red.
 
When i was about 11 I started helping a very straight laced lady with her horses, she was giving me a lesson on her little mare and as we finished and were coming out of the school the lady said something, I turned around to see what she said and got too close to the gate post, my long rubber boot then got stuck in the gate latch, gracefully pulling me off the back of the little mare who just carried on walking, I landed on my hands but winded with one leg up in the air and totally hooked up and the lady in a total panic, I cant remember how we got my leg free, it would have been hilarious if the lady wasnt so posh, I was pretty mortified at the time!!!! Im 33 now, she must be 80 and the last time I spoke to her she said she had been telling someone about it!!
 
I went for a hack at a trekking centre last year. I'd not been having lessons for long at this point and I was honest about my ability and what I had been doing. During the assessment I got very tense and I suspect that I rode even worse than I'd told them. I overheard the guide being told to take it easy on the ride. This was actually what I'd requested but there was something in the way it was said which touched a nerve. Anyhow during the hack ( just me and a guide) which was on very uneven mountainside with lots of mud, ditches and rocks there was the occasional patch of level ground where we could canter. On one of the very brief canters the lead riders pony spooked and applied his rear brakes just as she'd gone past a lovely muddy section. Pony skidded onto his bottom and the guide got dumped on her bottom is deep black mud. I was just behind and stopped very nicely and stayed on. When we got back to the yard the guide was asked how she'd got on. She replied " I fell off" There was a look of complete astonishment on the yard managers face as she said "You fell off! I smiled sweetly and said " well I guess You weren't expecting to hear That ?
At the time I was at the point of giving up riding. However this incident probably changed my mind. That was a year ago and I've stuck with it.
 
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