Ow.

Alternate title: Why People Shouldn't Have Horses They Can't Control.

We played games in class today, trotting games. Now, I'll grant that Monkey had his moments, and he spooked at one point and scared the whole damn team, but I had him under a certain amount of control at all times.

Even when he was at his most cantankerous last semester I had a modicum of control.

One girl in class who shall remain nameless but who is not one of the ones that I particularly like on a personal level brought a little Appaloosa mare to ride this semester. Fine, I don't like Appys but I don't have to ride it either.

However, if she cannot maintain a modicum of control, she should be on a different horse.

For instance, if the class happens to be doing relay races, and the hand off is a high five, yes you have to get close enough to the other horse to high five.

There is absolutely no reason, however, to allow your horse to broadside the other horse at a fast trot.

No. Fucking. Control.

I might be a teensy bit bitter about this point right now, because there's currently a bruise the size of Maine developing on my shin, and I will now have to spend time teaching my horse not to fear other horses coming up to his left side. You know, considering that she hit us with enough force to literally knock him to the right two steps before he caught his balance, it's a fairly reasonable apprehension on his part. But now I have to correct it.

Also, considering that the horse she's riding is neurotic, psychotic, or both, I might have given her a little bit of leeway on the subject if she hadn't managed to snarl at me while she was supposedly apologizing.

No matter what kind of crap Monkey, or any horse I have ever ridden has gotten up to, I have never allowed them to ram another horse.

Let me repeat that. Never in my life have I had a horse so out of control that I couldn't control it at least enough to keep it from slamming into another horse. And this is considering that I've been on board runaways, bucking bronc imitators, and one completely psychotic little gray quarter horse welsh pony cross mare that would literally go over backwards on me.

Never. Not once have I ever been paying little enough attention to my surroundings or my horse that I have allowed it to slam into another horse. I don't give a shit if you do miss the high five and have to come back around, it's just a stupid game and guess what?

No one gets hurt that way.

Grrrrrrrr.