Technically this isn't a new event, and some of you will have already heard about it - albeit a version with a few more expletives - but I have been asked for a repeat, so here goes.
A few weeks ago, we had just finished dinner one evening when Rob receives a text. Not a cause for alarm for most people, but only 2 people text Rob, She-who-must-not-be-named (who is sitting right there) and Alyssia, the barn manager, which never ever bodes well. Sure enough the text reads "Don't want to alarm you but Lacey tried to jump a fence and now she is entangled in the wire". Everyone flies into panic mode, load up the van with any cutting implement we can find and head for the stables. Unfortunately in our rush, no one remembered a flashlight, and we arrive at the barn in the pitch black with only a cell phone for illumination - which trust me works a lot better in the movies than it does in a field in the middle of nowhere.
We send Grady to the neighbour's to borrow a flashlight, while Rob takes off to the back field where Alyssia is waiting with Lacey. That leaves me, knee deep in mud, trying to determine whether to shimmy under the fence or haul myself over the top - either way I just know I'm going face first in the mire. This is usually the part in the tale where I start with the expletives. Fortunately I didn't have to ponder my predicament for long, as Grady came back with a flashlight and I was able to see enough to open the gate. Of course, by the time I have closed it again, Grady's legged it with the light and I'm stumbling around in the dark. This is no grassy meadow I am traversing, but a muddy, partially frozen death trap.
Meanwhile Rob has been able to free Lacey, amazingly she was calm and unhurt, but as soon as she was unencumbered by the fence, she took off through the neighbour's field with Rob in hot pursuit. No way was I going back at this point, so I struggle gamely on to help Rob catch the dam horse. We have a plan and I am supposed to herd her towards Rob who has her lead rope - which had he thought to attach it before he freed her, we wouldn't now be chasing her across the bloody field.
Amazingly our plan works, and off they trot, with nary a backwards glance, leaving me in the middle of nowhere. Grady, Alyssia and the flashlight have already returned to the barn. I figure it can't be too difficult to follow Rob, after all if he can make it through the undergrowth with the bloody horse in tow, I ought to be able manage. That was my last coherent thought of the night, because what happened next was a perilous journey through a stream, head first into a ditch, and did I mention smacking full tilt into a woodpile ? Turns out that I didn't take the same route as Rob....
By the time I make it, battered & bruised, back to the road and up the drive to the barn, my knuckles are dragging on the ground and I am gasping my last breath. At that point Grady comes scampering down the drive and gleefully exclaims "I bet you're wishing you'd started that diet now, huh mum ?". The only reason that child still lives and breathes is because I could not gather enough forward momentum to catch him.
Meanwhile, with Lacey safely back in the barn and given the once over, Rob suddenly remembers that he had left me stranded. He hot foots it to the back field, and according to him, frantic that I am unconscious face down in the mud. More likely, he was considering the dreaded repercussions of him abandoning me to the elements. And he had good reason to fear ....
Still, we all learned a lesson from this. We now have an official "Rescue Lacey Kit" complete with extra flashlights, as this wasn't the first time we have had to extricate her, and Rob now knows that if he ever puts the welfare of the horse before my own again, she is headed for the glue factory !
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