alobear | How I nearly caused a six-horse pileup

The indoor school still isn't ready, so we went out on a hack again today. I wasn't best pleased, because I went hacking yesterday and really wanted a lesson today, but it turned out to be quite fun.

I was riding Dolly, a horse I'v never ridden before, and one who will kick anything that gets within range of her hind legs. This put poor

siroswold in a very difficult position because he was behind me on Bilbo, with

fishbang behind him on Guinness. Now, Bilbo is quite small and Guinness is very, very large, which made it hard for

fishbang to keep from getting to close.

siroswold was trying desperately not to get too close to Dolly so Bilbo wouldn't get kicked, but Bilbo was trying desperately to get away from Guinness, who kept stomping right up behind him.

Dolly was generally going quite well, though she refused to keep up with

weaselbitch on Martini - I'm guessing she decided that, since she hates anyone coming up behind her, it's likely that Martini would feel the same so she kept a steady pace with a big gap in front.

However, since there were loads of other rides out in the woods again, it was inevitable that we would meet up with other horses. At one point, a ride went across in front of us, all cantering madly up the hill, which made all our horses prick up their ears and wish they were doing that, too.

So, when we got to the next trotting place, we all set off into trot, but I could hear

siroswold asking

fishbang to keep Guinness back a bit, as Bilbo was getting nervous. So, I encouraged Dolly to pick up her pace a bit, hoping that would mean

siroswold wouldn't have to hold Bilbo back as much to stay away from me, so that

fishbang wouldn't have to hold Guinness back as much to stay away from Bilbo.

Unfortunately, there was quite a gap between me and Martini at this point, and I must have edged Dolly just past her trotting speed threshold and she broke into canter. Martini evidently heard pounding hooves coming up behind her, so she cantered as well to get out of the way, and the other three horses behind me (

vampadvocate was right at the back on Jim) just followed Dolly's lead and all started cantering as well.

By this stage, Kelly at the front on a very excitable Yogi had figured out that something had gone amiss and she spun her horse round on the spot to see what was going on, saw us all cantering and started yelling at us all to stop!

Luckily, we all managed to halt without any collisions or fallings off - and I think most of us actually really enjoyed it! - but I did feel a bit bad, because it could have been much worse, and it was my horse that started it all off.

Hey ho - we all got back in one piece, I had a lot of fun, and the school should be ready by my next lesson in two weeks. However, Dolly goes straight onto my list of top five most uncomfortable horses because she's really uneven in both walk and trot, which meant I was being thrown in every direction with every step. She also spent so much time with her entire attention focused on where Bilbo was behind us, that I'm amazed we didn't run into a tree!