This past Sunday, friends of ours invited us to join them at their daughter’s equestrian competition. We gladly accepted the invitation as the girls had never been to one before and we thought they might enjoy watching the day’s events.
By way of introduction to the genre, my husband gave the girls a verbose “Horses 101” primer so that they could get a sense of what the whole thing was about. By the time he got to the point about safety around horses, they were only half tuned in. He was telling them how to always keep a safe, half-a-horse distance between themselves and the horse's rear. He explained, “Horses can be easily startled and they may do this—," and he picked up his leg to illustrate how they kick. But he never actually got to complete the lesson, because his lengthy oration was abruptly interrupted by communal shrieks and screams, a loud crash, and a crowd—20 feet away from us—fitfully clamoring to clear out. When the dust settled, we discovered that the commotion was caused when a startled horse fell on the woman who had been seated on her lawn chair just behind him. Miraculously, she was ok, though her lawn chair suffered a severe blow.
After that, the girls enthusiastically tuned in for the remainder of the lesson.
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