There's Always Something...

I rode Santana and fell off.
Ya know I love riding him. He is the one horse that gives me the least amount of problems.
I rode Santana with the goal to try and start improving my balance. I took him out into the paddock, kicked my feet out of the stirrups and tried the best I could to stay on.
We walked we did sharp turns, we trotted,... and I was beginning to sorta kinda figure out how to stay on that bone crunching trot of his.
I let him canter just for the fun of it and the first thing I noticed was that I couldn't stay in the saddle real well in part because the leather was slippery and I won't even bother to mention the other part.
The second time we cantered we were running down the longest side of the paddock and when he turned I started to fall and then tried to fix it by hanging onto the saddle horn. It was a great idea except for the fact that the cinch was pretty loose. So, the saddle slid with me and I fell of anyway. The problem is that I can't keep myself from being flung to the outside of his circles. Ya know what was really nice though? He started running away towards the gate. I said woah. He stopped and looked at me like "do you want something?" Oh he makes me laugh.
I got back on, put my feet back in the stirrups and cantered him. Good thing too because all he really needed was to blow off some steam. Kicked my feet out of the stirrups and did some more walking and trotting. Cantered a little bit and I think I am beginning to figure it out.
One thing I am extremely thankfull for is that I wasn't next to a fence or poop when I fell off.

So, is it a bad sign when your horse repeatedly lays down and attempts to roll? Ya, we thought so too.
It was around 4:30 and Toffy layed down and stretched out. We bugged her for a while. I sat on her back when she had her feet underneath her and then we went and fed them. We gave them all their food and they all dug into it happily... Everyone except Toffy. She didn't want to eat it and just put her nose in the bucket and slowly nibbled it. Terry thought that if she didn't want to eat it we probably shouldn't feed it to her because it might make it worse. After that she got up, layed down, rolled, got up, layed down, rolled. As far as her ears go she didn't look like she was in pain. We got the halter put her on it and went for a little walk. I took her up the drive way, between a couple small barns and then asked her to trot. She went into it perfectly. No complaints, no refusals. We trotted into the alfalfa field and all the way around.
At one point the dogs came out and chased her from the other side of the fence. She freaked out and tried to run away, but I pulled her back in time. She paused, tried to run away again, but I kept her facing the dogs. Then that was it. She realized that the dogs couldn't get her because they were on the other side of the fence and we proceeded around the alfalfa fied. Once again she went into the trot perfectly.
She walked once and I let her. If she wants a breather that's fine with me. We picked up the trot again and when we were at the other end she stopped and poopped. It was like diarriah. We trotted the rest of the way back to the barn then we put her back in with the other fillies and she layed down again. We watched her a little while put the halter back on and I took her out the the back pen and longed her. We walked for a little bit, then trotted, and even experimented with cantering. She is actually not that bad. She turned, listened to my cues, never tried to lay down and was generaly perfect. We even let her loose for a couple minutes and she didn't lay down.
We put her back in the barn and she immediatley layed down. We listened to her gut and it was growling, but it was minimal.
Terry dropped us off at home and said that he'd call us if she needed to be walked at 10:00 at night. He said it jockingly, but our reply was not a joke. We told him "Sure."
So, I sincerely hope that Toffy will be okay and that we can all continue with our lives without worrying about anything.