Another Klaus Story

Swinging the dial back a little farther on the time machine, Klaus and I went to a schooling show. This was our first show together, and only the second time I'd ridden him somewhere other than JS's property. To (hopefully) fully enjoy this story, one needs a little more background on Klaus idiotsyncrasies.

As a yearling, Klaus was tall. And prone to periods of panic. This was long before I met him, but as the story goes, Klaus was in the crossties in the aisle of the barn, reared up, and shattered the fluorescent tubes above him. This had two effects:

1. You couldn't tie Klaus. He was a groundtie only horse from then on.

2. You couldn't spray Klaus with anything. Flyspray, hose, nope.

So... after a nice hand bath holding a ginormous Klaus as he wiggled in the grass, Klaus and his sister Luca were bundled up into the trailer for our debut. Warm-up went relatively well, although we realized there was a minor problem or two with each horse.

Luca would call to Klaus nearly constantly. Once in our actual classes, she was moderately better; she only called to him when he wasn't in her immediate eye-line. Fortunately, Klaus only tried to reciprocate once, and a firm thwack on the shoulder discouraged him from that notion.

Klaus's problem was discovered when we went from the warm-up ring to the actual show ring gate. He WOULD NOT enter unless Luca was right in front of him. Going in to warm-up in the show ring (very causal schooling show) with the rest of their class, Luca was the first in, followed by several other horses.

This proved awkward, as the great heaving bulk of Klaus slung around unhappily by the gate, staring longingly at his sister as she circled the ring.

His sister who was screaming her head off because Klaus wasn't in front of her.

sigh

As Luca came past the gate, I pushed Klaus through, and we had obstacle one down to a sucessful placing in the class. We were in the ring.

 We walked along the first short side, and Klaus was having none of it. He snorted, he spooked, he resisted going anywhere near the fence at this end of the ring.

It's OK, Klaus.

uh... no. No. NO.

IT IS OK KLAUS! GO!!

At last Klaus acquiesced. After all, I'd never led him astray. He sighed and marched bravely along the fenceline.

The unseen (by me) sprinklers came on and started spraying.

Sorry, Klaus, you were right.

My bad.