Applejack was a great first horse for the little girls and me. He had done about everything with his previous owners and was very patient with our mistakes. We used him for gymkhana. We used him for trail rides.
We did parades. We did drill team.
That's his little appy butt behind everyone else below:
We even played at team penning. We went horse camping. And Jack took care of us through it all. (Due to the computer virus I mentioned a while back, I don't have many pictures of Jack left... wish I could post a bunch more...)My best Jack story is the night he didn’t kill me. He sure could have, and a lot of other horses in the same situation probably would have.
Andria and I were riding with our friend Cynthia in a field not far from our house. It was a BIG field, with a lot of trash in it, divided into sections by berms. So in one pretty clean section we used a grocery cart, a broken stroller, and some other piece of junk I can’t recall, to make a barrel pattern to practice. And we did some cantering practice took, just running big circles around the perimeter of the section. It was getting close to dusk and we were about to call it good and head home when Andria got a bright idea.
Andria: Mom, why don’t you try the spurs. They will make Jack go really fast!
Me: Thanks, I don’t really want to.
Andria: Come on Mom, it’s fun to go fast.
Me: Maybe another time, it’s getting dark.
Andria: Oh come on Mom, just one time around, it’s so fun.
Mom caves. Mom puts on the spurs. Mom thinks to herself, smart person that she is, that if Jack is going to go faster, I will have to make my turns a little sooner and a little tighter, or I will hit that berm.
Do you see where this is going?
I should have made my turns a LOT sooner and a LOT tighter, because we DID hit that berm. Poor Jack, bless his heart, sank into dirt up to his knees, tried valiantly to get his front legs out and working again, but the back end of him was coming too fast and BAM we were a$$ over teakettle and suddenly I was on the ground with a 1000 pound rolling pin on my knee… that was Jack who was upside down, 4 feet in the air!
He tried once to roll away from me, AGONY but he didn’t get up. I’m laying there thinking OMG I have killed my horse, his legs are broken and he can’t get up… Andria and Cynthia come running, try to get Jack off me, AGONY again but he still couldn’t get up. This attempt spooked Cynthia’s mare so badly that she jerked the reins out of her hand and took off towards traffic.
Bad news. Cynthia of course took off after the horse.
In the meantime, Andria observed that I had gone one way and the saddle the other way, and he couldn’t roll OVER the saddle horn… and again bless his heart he would not even TRY to come my way. If he had, he could have easily fractured my leg, my hip, kicked me in the head – and numerous other things to horrible to contemplate. I told Andria to unbuckle everything she could find and see if Jack roll off the saddle and get up without it, and thank the Lord the third time that 1000 pound rolling pin went over my knee was the last – SUCCESS! Jack got right up even with just Andria’s help.
Cynthia did catch her horse, amazingly enough, and they mounted up and I was going to walk home, felt bad about poor Jack – he had abrasions on his nose, chest and knees. Didn’t get but a couple of blocks and I just had to get back on, I could hardly walk.
No broken bones for either of us, not even really any blood, just scrapes for him and bruises (everywhere!) for me… God was definitely watching out for us that day!
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