Niawen and the fair...

Niawen is one of the most beautiful mares we have owned and incidentally one of the largest. She never was much for crowds and only seemed to like certain people. Well, we would load up a few horses every year for the Mufreesboro, TN horse fair and rare breeds expo. One year we had the brilliant idea to take Niawen along with us. The first day was alright and by the end of the day she had enough of all the gawkers and didn't want them touching her. So she was happy when it closed and she could relax. The second day of the two day event, it was only about halfway through the day when she decided it was not fun anymore and she wanted to go home. So we figured we could just put her into the trailer for the last few hours and she would be fine. Well Niawen decided she didn't want to load on the trailer and was becoming increasingly agitated, so we had the on call vet sedate her. With her eyes all droopy and hanging her head she still refused to load. So the vet gave her another large dose. At this point Niawen could not even hold her own head up, we were doing that for her and still trying to get her on the trailer. We would pick her foot up and put it on and in slow motion she would pull it back off. Just to give you an understanding of her, she was a 16hh 1200lb mare that could be as stubborn as a mule. So my brother trying to help out went behind her to push while we pulled and tried to get her feet up on the trailer. This mare that could not even hold her head up of her own free will defiantly picked up her back foot, set it gently on his chest and just pushed. It was just like a cartoon, he flew up in the air and skidded to a halt on his butt. Even thinking about it now I still laugh.