Everyone, meet Toby... well this isn't actually Toby, but it is what he looks like. The real Toby, who I hope to get a picture of soon, has a white blaze on his face. Some of you may or may not know anything about horses... essentially they have two purposes: to eat grass and to have humans ride them. Guess which one Toby hates??? So here's the back story - my department VP really likes me. He's very paternal. He and his family have two horses: Toby the fire breather and Rusty who has at least one foot in the grave... fortunately for him he has four of them. Anyway, Mike's daughter used to ride Toby. I'm guess it was infrequently, but at least he didn't hate it then. Well, I would call ole Tobster "barely broke" if I had to describe him. Lucky for me they have this nice piece of equipment that keeps their head tethered to the girth (the thing around the tummy) so they can't throw their head up... why is this important you ask? It's a physics thing: momentum. If Toby can't push his head all the way down and then fling it back up, he has a hard time throwing me off. I know this because he tries it. One thing he has gotten really good at, to compensate for the inability to buck, is turning so quickly it would throw someone off. Again, fortune is on my side, and Toby isn't the first strong willed beast I've met - so I plan for it. I've been helping re-break Toby for two short weeks now and while it isn't going well, I would have to say the overall score is Toby - 0, Haley - 2. :)
Glad that if you're going to spend time with a horse instead of watching games, at least you're winning!!
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