Athleticism isn't always a good thing

The following workday came and went and I quickly found myself in the time slot allotted to go and see the horses. I managed to put it off by accomplishing other tasks, even dishes and laundry. Never before had I purposefully avoided the horses, this in and of itself was unnerving. However, the most unsettling thought of all was that the cause of my anxiety came in the form of a 12 day old cute and fuzzy colt. I mentally slapped myself for being such a scaredy cat. I wound up some resolve to pretend that my failure of the previous evening simply didn't exist.
Teri walked through the front door. "Ready to go to the barn?"
"Yeah, I guess. Lemme put on my boots." I sighed. Teri is the one who is somewhat new to horses, yet she's ready to give it another shot. She's not trying to avoid Remi. I'm the only one doing that - and I'm supposed to be the experienced one.
The stables were deserted when we arrived - I breathed a sigh of relief. All I needed today was somebody else's horse to flip out or try to attack Remi or for that person to judge me and how I handled my horse family.
Teri and I approached the stall, grabbed both halters and let ourselves in. Rose is always easy to halter, she was done in a second. Remi stood nicely while I pulled the halter onto his face and buckled the strap. As we were about to open the gate and walk to the arena, another boarder appeared out of nowhere and was just letting her horse loose in the arena. Damn.
"Well, nobody's using the other arena. I guess we could put them in there." I wasn't sure how Rose would handle this, since she'd never been in there before.
"Okay, I'll go open up the gate and then make sure Remi doesn't run towards the other arena. Wait a minute before you come out." Teri walked down the barn aisle and headed left towards the jumping arena. After a minute I saw her walk back towards us and then stop, so she could block the path to the big arena.
"Ready!" she called.
I pushed open the stall gate and led Rose to the left, instead of straight. Remi stood in the aisle, considering. Rose walked farther and farther away from him, and he chose to follow her. Thank god. We turned left again at the end of the stalls and walked towards the jumping arena gate. Remi ran right up to Teri as if to say, "What are you doing here? I want to run this way!"
Teri clapped her hands at him and shooed him towards Rose. I took Rose into the arena and Remi ran right in behind us. I closed the gate and let Rose loose.

Mare and foal ran to the other side of the arena, and proceeded to explore this new enclosure. Rose trotted all around, sniffing the jumps. Remi rocketed back and forth, encountering cavaletti poles on the ground that the trainer had been using to school her young horse. These poles were new and must have been scary or exciting, so he took a giant flying leap to clear them. The sand was flying as he skidded to a stop. He turned around to come investigate. He sniffed the poles, pawed at them with his foot, stepped on them and over them. This must have satisfied his curiosity, and he ran off to go pester Rose. Every once in awhile he would run back over to the poles and jump them, apparently it was enjoyable.
Before long, Remi grew tired. Rose stopped investigating and turned to unearthing mesquite beans from the arena sand. Remi was laying down in Rose's shadow. I took up Rose's lead rope and opened the gate. Rose trotted right over to the gate and let me clip her lead onto her halter. Remi followed Rose straight back to her stall without causing trouble.
I breathed a sigh of relief after closing the stall gate. Teri came up beside me after giving Rose her grain and commented,
"Well, that was pretty uneventful."
I smiled in agreement.
The rest of the week passed in the same fashion - uneventfully. A couple days in the big arena and a couple days in the jumping arena. On Friday I got a phone call from a friend who I hadn't seen in awhile, a vet I used to work for named Catherine.
"Hey what are you doing tomorrow?" she asked.
"Nothing much, just spending time at the barn." I answered.
"I was thinking about coming to visit the horses, would that be okay?"
"Of course! It'd be great to see you!" I exclaimed.
"Awesome, I'll probably be there in the late afternoon or early evening. I'll let you know when I get off at Ina." she offered.
"Perfect. See you tomorrow!" I hung up the phone, happy with the idea of getting to see Catherine, but a little worried about how Remi would behave. As if my friend who was once a vet at a racetrack never saw the naughty side of horses. At this idea, I laughed.
Saturday dawned hot and bright. The month of August had just began and the summer's heat was in full swing. We avoided going to the barn before 4pm, but even 4pm was still ungodly hot. We got to the barn about 4:30, and I thought I'd clean out the water barrel and change the bedding in the stall to kill some time while we waited for Catherine. After the chores were completed, Teri groomed Rose while I got Remi used to the feeling of a brush on his body. About 5:30 I got a text from Catherine that said she was at Ina and Thornydale. I estimated it would take her about 30-35 minutes to reach us from there. I wanted to have the horses already in the arena when she arrived but only just, so she could see Remi run around. If they were in the arena too early, he would tire himself out before she got there.
That very Saturday afternoon, I brought Remi's lime green halter with us to the barn. His tiny little suckling halter had been growing increasingly tight over his nose and we ran out of holes to make it larger. At two and a half weeks old, he was already wearing a weanling size halter. Admittedly, it was just a tiny bit big for him, but he would grow into it before too long.
Fifteen minutes before Catherine was going to pull in to the stables, we walked the horses to the jumping arena. Another horse was already loose in the big arena again. Remi strutted along, proudly wearing his "big boy" halter, and we shut the gate behind them. They took to running and cavorting like usual.

Catherine drove in just a few minutes later, and parked in front of the arena.
She got out of the car and we all exchanged hugs and greetings, then settled ourselves along the fence line in the shade, leaning on the top cross rail.
Remi came galloping up to the fence to meet his new admirer. Catherine stuck her hand out and petted Remi for a moment, then he took off again. We chatted for a few minutes about him and how well Rose was doing. Catherine wanted to see him a little closer, so we all ducked under the rail and slid in sideways through the fence. Remi walked up to her and stood for a minute while she petted and scratched him. Teri and I stood inside the arena with Rose, in the shade. After a few minutes of adoration, Remi had enough. He kicked up his heels and took off towards the far end. Rose lifted her head, but no longer felt the need to chase after him all over the place - after all, he was fenced in on four sides.
Having reached the back fence, Remi performed an about-face and came flying back towards us at full tilt. One of his favorite games was something we liked to call "chicken with the fence", when he stopped at the last possible second before crashing into a fence or a gate. He was getting quite good and was able to stop in a very short distance.
Today however, Remi had a different mission in mind. Little did we know that he had zero intention of stopping.
The next few seconds seemed to pass simultaneously in slow motion and in fast forward. All three of us watched him approach the fence, but not one of us thought to try and stop him before his inevitable crash.
And then the unthinkable happened.
Instead of a nasty collision with the fence, Remi lowered his head and raised his legs, and made a flying leap between the top and bottom rails of the fence. His forelegs didn't quite make it up high enough but he scraped over the bottom railing and landed on his feet, outside the arena. Teri, Catherine and I all stared at one another, then back at the little colt standing just outside the fence, our mouths agape in shock.
At first, Remi seemed pretty surprised, then pleased with himself. After a moment, Rose noticed that her baby was no longer inside the arena.
Her body posture suddenly changed from relaxed and grazing to an acute awareness that something was wrong. Her head snapped to attention, nostrils flared and ears pricked. She immediately started calling shrilly for her foal. He whinnied back to her and came back towards the fence. Rose catapulted herself in the direction of the gate and Remi followed - but he didn't stop at the gate. He galloped around the outside of the far end of the arena, still whinnying for his mother. Rose was frantic and began sprinting back and forth along the fence line closest to Remi. I stood at the gate with her lead rope, refusing to chase after her. As she made another run in my direction, I stood directly in her path and shouted,
"WHOA!!!"
She seemed so surprised by my actions that she stopped dead in her tracks. I clipped the lead onto her halter, and opened the gate. I led her outside and stood where Remi could see us, Rose continuing to nicker for him. He ran straight to us, and we turned and walked back into the arena with Remi following behind. He was only too glad to be back at Rose's side. She insistently nosed him all over while he stood stock still, apparently traumatized. The only mark from his whole adventure was a small scrape on his foreleg where he'd contacted the fence.
At this moment, I saw an opportunity to take advantage of the situation. I had Teri hold Rose while I got Remi's lead rope and clipped it to his new green halter. Then we let Rose wander off. As Remi followed her, I just walked alongside him holding the rope. I didn't pull on him, just walked with him around the arena. After he was used to be walking around with him, I began to subtly direct his nose. Each time he submitted to the pressure, I stopped pulling. Slowly but surely he got used to the idea. When Rose would stop, I would apply light pressure backwards on the rope until Remi came to a halt, then praise him for doing so well.
Teri took a hold on Rose again and started to walk back to her stall. I walked alongside Remi as he followed his mother.

After we took off their halters and fed them, Teri and Catherine and I stood outside the stall to exclaim about the day's events. I was overwhelmed with relief that we had finally gotten a lead rope on Remi and that he was ready to accept all that entailed without too much of a fuss, but I was also more than a little concerned about the fact that our two and a half week old foal had just made a prison break.
I really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into when we decided to try to raise and keep the foal. Remi was rapidly turning into something much more intimidating than a cute baby should represent.