The Hydrophobic Pony
When you are 16 years old you think you know everything. (No offense.) My parents had a magnet on their refrigerator that read, “Hire a teenager while they still know everything,” and I never understood what it meant until I was out of college. I naively thought, “Huh…I guess you start forgetting things after your teens.”
When I was 16, I rode a cute Welsh-Arabian cross pony named Smokey. I was retraining him for a friend and he was staying at our farm. At this point, I had reached the riding level of competent novice, which meant my hands were coordinated half of the time and I had begun to grasp the difference between tracking to the left and tracking to the right…so I was totally ready to retrain a 16-year-old, 13.2-hand pony.
After multiple rides and earning the nickname “Smokey the Butt”, I finally got him to a manageable stage where he didn’t bolt back to the barn or stop dead in his tracks and refuse to move.
One humid June day after a successful ride where I didn’t have to beg Smokey for a canter, I decided to give him a rewarding bath. He was a flea bitten gray, and I couldn’t wait to see his coat glisten like fresh snow.
I untacked and led him to the water spigot. At the time, our hose was a short, stubby thing that only reached ten feet thanks to my brother running over it with a lawn mower. I didn’t want to hold Smokey’s lead rope while hosing him off. I wanted to tie him up and forgo the hassle of trying to “hold and hose” at the same time. There were no fence posts or solid objects within a ten-foot radius of the spigot, so I slung the lead rope over the spigot pipe and tightened it into a square knot. Smokey munched on grass as I heaved the faded red handle up to start the water.
The water spewed out the hose, choking and sputtering on air pockets. I was checking the water temperature when I heard a violent snort, skitter of hooves and SNAP! Smokey was a white blur rushing to the safety of the barn and the spigot was bent 45 degrees towards the ground. I stood there, the hose still spewing water, processing what had just occurred. It dawned on me that Smokey was highly terrified of water, and maybe I should have tested his knowledge of cold hosing before bathing him.
The next day a puddle had formed around the base of the spigot, even though I had turned it off. My dad had to hire a well expert to look at the damage. Later on, he called me into his office and handed me the bill. The pipes under the ground had cracked and the cost was a staggering $2,000! My eyes bulged, my heart sunk and I felt like the idiot I had been for tying a pony to a pipe. My dad’s soft Southern drawl broke my depressed thoughts: “Next time, honey, try to keep his bath cheap.”