Texas wasn’t nearly as hot as it was supposed to be which was nice for the people riding on the trail ride but bad for me. Vet judges thrive on death and destruction. If it is hot then the horses recover more slowly so we have a way to separate the horses into placings. This weekend I had a bunch of healthy happy horses who flat out refused to lose points.

I reinforced the fact that I’m very easy to amuse. They gave me a set of bunny ears that made me very happy. I wore them all weekend. The only other person who did that was a pre-teen girl. I’m not sure what that says about me. They did come in handy to threaten a few horses. If they put their ears back at me then I put my ears back at them. It tended to work better than expected.

I did have one horse that was a bit of a challenge. His person led him up to me at check in and announced that he had repeatedly attacked a judge at a previously ride. I’m glad she told me but what do you say to that? “Nice pony”?
He had kicked with his hind legs. So I checked out the front half of him and moved to his hind legs. I noticed that he tensed when I put my stethoscope on his flank so I worked slowly back to be able to examine his hind legs. No kicking. Then she mentioned that he had kicked the other vet when he put the stethoscope on him – not when he handled the hind legs. Great, nice to know that now! But he was good all weekend if you went slow.
It was all good thogh because I was staying at a bed and breakfast with a hot tub. I’ve done rides where I don’t get a shower so this was luxury.

My flight got delayed on the way home. When it came time to load I decided that I didn’t want to be marooned with these people a la LOST. I’ve never seen a group less able to board a plane. They couldn’t figure out the overhead bins despite repeated announcements. We’d never survive long on a mysterious island.

Now the SO, Z, and I are driving towards Washinton DC!