So I was riding through a field the other day and noticed a flock of about 200 Canada Geese taking a rest in the adjacent field. In an attempt to not have them suddenly wake up and fly off in a Hitchcock nightmare and spook my horse, I attempted to tip toe my horse past them. I literally tried to get a 1200lb horse to walk as quietly as possible. Naturally it didn’t work. One goose saw us and decided to wake the gang up. Horse actually handled it very well and only shot forward a bit. I spent the day thinking about my silly attempt at geese avoidance and wondered what other cartoon-ey feats other have attempted on horseback.
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I used to go after the mule deer to try to intimidate them into giving us more space. This was driving a reactive Hackney pony, no less. The deer just laughed. The only time that really succeeded was after I started driving my larger pony. He was a sweetheart, but had a stare that could melt ice.
Rebecca
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You’re nicer than me! At an old event barn it used to be my job to ride out in the morning and chase the geese out of the water complex and off of the XC field. There were so many of them that their droppings made the ground slick and they muddied up the water. My late gelding used to LOVE the job of chasing them out of the water - to the point one year we were out on XC at Stoneleigh and he saw geese in a nearby pond and almost ran off with me. 
One of the more ridiculous things I’ve done lately with the current horse is tried to convert him into a skijorer — but instead of a ski, a water tube. He did alright!
How does one get a horse to tiptoe? Good boy for not losing it!
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not me but I did come home one summer afternoon to find youngest daughter and her horse in the den watching TV, she said it was too hot outside for her horse
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When Odin is really relaxed in the cross ties he generally dozes off and lets his lower lip hang. Once I took these really small treats and put them in his lower lip wondering when he’d wake up and realize what was going on. I had quite the little pile in there when he finally stirred and found his lip full of yummy goodness. The look of surprise on his face was priceless! The picture is not the time did that, but check out that lip!
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I was tip toeing out of self preservation. My guy is not good with wildlife, so I was trying to be discreet…on a 1200lb animal.
I used to love riding at Stoneleigh. That must have been fun running the geese out of there.
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Rode in the local Santa Claus parade behind the fire truck that was sounding the siren on a regular basis for starters, followed it up by riding through downtown Ottawa for the Exhibition parade when I was older and supposedly more sensible.
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I used my father’s belts to make a pulling collar, attached one longe line as a tow rope, and one as reins and had my horse pull me around on skis. I also rode through a drive-thru on a very commercial strip once. I was getting new trailer tires, rode through the lots of a few car dealerships, then to (fittingly) the Roy Rogers drive-thru. In college I rode through a drainage culvert under route 95 with 3 lanes each way plus median to get to trails on the other side. It was extremely dark in there. I got lost in a cornfield on a small pony.
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When I was a young teen, I used to feed a couple of scruffy backyard horses for a friend. She’d let me ride the mare from time to time, and I’d pretend the mare and young filly were mine. I was a tomboy-type kid, but after reading too many horse books that addled my mind 
, had dazzling princess aspirations for that mare. One day, I made a bridle for her out of my mom’s sewing notions that I swiped from her sewing box, complete with delicate blue velvet ribbon headstall with jeweled buttons sewn on, a velvet ribbon-laced embroidered piece noseband, and I attached satin ribbon reins. I sewed on the bit, and slipped it on the mare. Then I climbed aboard in a big corral to revel in the sparkly splendor. The old girl was spunky that day, and she zipped around. The “bridle” couldn’t handle the shenanigans and fell apart in spectacular fashion. The mare was now free and took me for quite a wild ride, several laps around the corral until I was unceremoniously dumped. Oh well, for a brief, shining moment, the old gray mare was a princess.
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I do this too! My mom had a pair of Percherons. Only one left but his lip has only gotten saggier as he’s gotten older. Nothing bothers the man. You could hide a tractor trailer in there.
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I once tried to recreate a scene from The Man from Snowy River. No, not THAT scene. I do have some common sense. I tried to recreate the scene where he is galloping along the hills, stops, looks around at his homeland, and just gives that “this is where I belong” look around.
This attempt was many decades ago, and my mount was Bam Bam, my half-Arab, half-lunatic gelding. I brought along my walkman and the tape of the soundtrack. We got way out in a big private pasture with an acceptable, though not comparable, hill, and I cued it up, started the music, and went into a canter.
SNORT! Bam truly had the Arab snort. He spotted an assassin blade of grass or something and did his patented spook-spin. I stayed on but didn’t resemble Jim Craig doing it. The marvelous soundtrack hardly matched our action. Okay, throw out that take. I rewound, started the music again, and off we went for another canter on the hill. That time, I believe he stumbled on a small, invisible rock or a clod of dirt or something. I once again stayed on, but our cinematography wasn’t that inspiring so far on this day.
Third time was the charm. Finally, the timing with the music was right, the horse stayed straight and upright, and I stayed balanced as we cantered along the crest of the hill, stopped, and I looked around in satisfaction.
Well, I’m sure movies often use at least three takes for a scene. 
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Brought my horse in early for a bath one lovely late fall day. I should have taken her clues (death stare and ears not happy) and put her in crossties, but instead I left her loose as normal. All good until I started washing her tail. At that point she just calmly walked out of the wash stall, around two corners and started down the barn aisle with me trying to hang onto her tail and admonishing her to “Whoa damn it.” She looked back at me, gave another death stare and calmly did a pony trot down the remainder of the aisle to get rid of me.
Once she hit gravel outside the barn it was game over and she cantered (straight through the outdoor wake that was going on for BO’s late husband :o ) back to the gate of her field. Oh, the embarrassment.
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Dying my mare’s tail as a teen…whatever tutorial I saw said tie it up in a plastic bag. Which was fine right up until the first swish at a fly and mare of course went WTF and galloped off. In front of the BO. Yep. Didn’t do that again lol.
More recently, the ONE time I didn’t close the arena gate (family property now so not a boarding barn) when lunging the young, usually calm and lacking in energy, horse was of course also the ONE time she decided she would try out the rodeo life. Cue horse galloping up the driveway, lunge line trailing behind, and putting on an impressive trot show, tail kinked right up to show whatever Arab she had in her, around the cul der sac. Whilst the electrician who happened to be at dad’s was attempting to leave.
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I can’t even recount all the things. The Old Man is a SAINT for allowing me to live.
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Walked him into the family’s manufacturing plant. Straight in. Hydraulic presses and spreaders, winders that spun into trenches in the ground, narrow aisles of copper reels… he didn’t bat an eye.
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Wanted to ride in Lake Michigan. Convinced a friend this was a good idea. Didn’t know where to do this. Pulled up to Mount Baldy, sign said “leashed pets allowed”. Well if you interpret that loosely… unloaded horses. Bareback with neck ropes, barefoot with shorts and bikini tops, we headed straight up the steepest sand hill - Mt. Baldy is the last living dune, and humans struggle to climb the back side let alone horses. Hit the top, friend and I looked at each other, and we just took off down the other side at a dead gallop straight towards the water. We managed to finish this day without a hefty fine (which we so deserved). Niko didnt even pick up his back feet going back down the steep side of the hill, and i dont think my crotch has ever recovered from riding his withers down.
Wow, I was an idiot.
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Lol that was one of my goals with Larry but the last few winters there was never enough snow. This goal has now been shifted to Eddie and have started ground driving
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Many here have seen this before, but…
She is very cowy but she’s afraid of cows. Geese were fun on land, but she thought they were scary in the water.
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Was around 7 and told to take out for exercise one neighbor’s young white farm mule.
He and his wife were old and just didn’t get around that well, we helped them out and I took them fresh milk every morning and then took their mule out for a spin.
I had seen a pony express movie where someone sprung off a running horse and grabbed the reins of another horse and leapt on it while the horse was already running.
Short as I was, the mule was not that tall, but I had to get on the high side of the mountain trail and ran along the mule and jumped on it, bareback and with a woven halter with a lead rope braided on it.
By the end of the summer I was very good at it.
No adult ever saw that, not sure they would have approved, even if the mule may have only trotted a bit, I felt like we were flying. 
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Goodness. Too many stupid stories to list.
Attempted to hitch my pony to one of those really cheap plastic sleds via lead lines thru the halter. Nothing bad happened, but she looked at us like, WTF?
As a teen, cantered my pony lengthwise under a set of grandstands with support beams that we would grab as the horse passed under. Then we would drop several feet to the ground and go collect our horse. My friends and I would do this and the winner was the one who could go the fastest, grab the beam and successfully yank themselves from the saddle to the beam. And then drop six feet. I seriously don’t know how no one died or wound up with a concussion.
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