Second time is always the worst.

I'm home early enough to report. Why? You may well ask!  Once I have told you, you may well wish that you hadn't :-(

It's well known that if a horse is going to get over-excited hunting that the second day is the worst. With that in mind, I rode Woody today in a pelham and a martingale. We started well, with controllability, and we popped a nice timber fence that several people had already refused at, and cantered up to where the masters had stopped, waiting for the rest to catch us up. Woody was getting a little fractious, pawing, turning, but nothing too serious. We moved off again out into a tarmac lane. He went sideways one way, sideways the other and was beginning to feel a little unsafe.

I let the reins go, so that he did not feel claustrophobic but instead of going forward he continued to turn sideways. I tried to straighten him and he reared. Then a second time, very high this time. And then he did the stupidest, stupidest thing I have ever known a horse do. There were horses in front of us and horses behind us. So why, oh why, did he turn sideways, rear really high again and plunge straight into and half way over a four strand barbed wire fence?

He just about got himself off it but in the process of his panic I allowed myself, as the safer option, to be chucked off backwards onto the tarmac. Well, all I can say is thank God for air jackets. And that's saying something because I'm not a big believer in God.  I bounced. Literally. If it hadn't been so damned serious it would have been funny.

There was no way I would have got back on even if I could, so I "walked" him back to the lorry, jigging, rearing, boxing his front feet really high in the air above my head and squashing me into barbed wire fencing. The only way I could keep him off me was to smack him in the face with my whip. It sounds horrid, I know, but it was him or me.

So we got back to the lorry with both of us in one piece. A minor wire cut to one front leg, but a pair of boots where only one strap out of eight was still in one piece.

And from there it only got worse! Read on if you dare. (He is still alive, but how, I do not know).

He seemed to calm down a little once the others had gone out of earshot, so we decided, as he was still slightly fractious and we were very, very close to a major A road, that the safest thing to do would be to put him in the box. We shut the partition, sighed with relief ....................... and then he went completely ballistic. We thought Jazz was mad in a box. He wasn't a patch on Woody today!!!

 First of all he reared and tried to jump through an 18 inch by 12 inch window. He bent the bars and smashed the window.

Then he reared and sat down, so that his bum was on the floor and his back feet near his front ones - this is inside a stall 32 inches wide.

Then he stood up, went up again and was smashing at the walls with his front feet.

And that was only for starters.

Now he went truly crazy. He reared, turned and hooked his front feet right over the partition with his girth on the top of it (he was still tacked up).  His head was banging on the ceiling, his nose was bleeding badly , but he simply didn't have room get his body over too.

We decided that it would be best to shut the ramp so that he knew he could not get out, so we threw it closed quickly.  He scrabbled about madly and then ended up on  his back with all his feet visible above the partition.

At this point we called an emergency vet.

We tried desperately to get the pin out of the partition to give him enough space to get up, but his weight was against it and it would not come free. At this point he thrashed and thrashed again and in his new postition, a twisted heap with his neck at a horrible angle underneath him his weight was no longer holding the pin.

SH went outside and climbing on a bucket he managed to pull out the pin through the smashed window, without getting near any thrashing feet. We opened the ramp, the gates, the partition and now we had a cast horse, with a horribly twisted neck, upside down and unable to move. We needed long ropes, and fast, to get him free.

At this point we called the Fire Brigade. And called the emergency vet again to find out where the hell they were!

The worst thing about a situation like this is that you simply cannot go near the horse, it is too dangerous. It's him or you, and if it was "you" a broken leg would be the least of your problems.  We did the only thing we could do, stood back and watched in horror.

He lay there completely upside down, neck sickeningly twisted, all four feet in the air, saddle under his back, breathing heavily. His eyes went cloudy, and then shut, and I thought we had lost him. Then he gave one last struggle, pushed himself free of the partition, got his neck out of the twist, and stood up, very, very shaky.

We heard sirens and the Fire Brigade arrived. They were lovely and stayed with us until the vet turned up. At his point he was stood, very dazed, on the lorry and I managed to take off his saddle and check for wire injuries under his boots.  My fear at this stage was anyone returning from the hunt, which I thought would set him off again.

We agreed with the vet that our best course of action, as he did not appear to have any treatable injuries, was to sedate him as heavily as possible consistent with being able to stand to travel, and drive him slowly home.  That's what we did, thankfully with no problems.

At home, we undid all the internal fixings before opening the ramp, in case seeing the other two set him off, but he was fine and I turned him into the barn, very quiet but apparently no worse for the experience, though I am sure that the least of his issues will be some stiffness for the next week.

So. That is the end of Woody's hunting career. No-one in their right minds would attempt to hunt him again, he is just too dangerous. I am in shock. Not only from what actually happened, but from that fact that there has been not  a hint in four whole months that he was capable of completely going off his head like that. Thank heavens that  the lorry was reinforced for Jazz, because if it had not been he would have been severely injured by bits of broken wood and metal.

I'm off now for a bath, a second G&T to calm my nerves (I never drink at this time of day!) and a review of how darned lucky I am to be alive, never mind completely unharmed.

C