Every morning at Chapman Valley Horse Riding the horses come galloping at the sound of the car horn, eager to start the day with their breakfast.
Usually our herd of 12 horses are all together, usually tucked up a valley under a patch of trees. This morning, however, things were a little different! Six of the horses were quite near to the mounting yards, talking to Maggie and Kate over the fence. After a driving further up their massive 1,000-acre paddock, four more came galloping towards me. “That’s 10 … where are the other two?” I thought.
It was quite easy to pick which horses were missing, Pippa our grey Paint mare, and Tiga our black/brown Australian Stock Horse Gelding. After driving up and down their paddock calling for them, we were stumped as to where they could be! ‘What if they’re injured?’ I thought. If it were only one horse missing we would be much more worried, but since there’s two surely they are just off by themselves hiding from the big cold frost that lay on the ground on this cold Winter morning. ‘What if they were stolen? Two of our best horses and two horses would make sense being the size of most standard horse floats. But where were the wheel tracks – how did they get in? Oh no! Maybe they stole our float too? Maybe I should go and check the shed, and make sure it’s there! At least they’re microchipped’ I thought ‘So if they have been stolen we can prove ownership quite easily when they are found….IF they are found!’ In scenarios like this, doubt and fear start creeping in – your mind always seems to jump to the worst scenarios – but you have to try and block this out, counteracting with pleasant thoughts! (none of the above is an exaggeration, it’s literally what went through my mind!)
By now it was 9.15am – and Pippa was supposed to be going out on the 10 am trail ride. After a quick switch-over in the day’s notes, I saddled my trusty gelding, Bundy, and went in search of the two missing rogues.
It was 9.50am before I found them! They were tucked riiiiight up the very end of their paddock, both fit and healthy, and obviously hadn’t heard the car horn calling for breakfast time!
Oblivious to the fact they were late for breakfast and had caused so much panic!
Never a dull moment at Chapman Valley! Until tomorrow…
– Jess
