Brego: "My humans are crazy. Please send help."

It's been almost a year since I moved back to Texas. At first, I thought this would be an easy gig - more eventing and foxhunting, and plenty of people to properly worship me. And then we started doing this thing called "jousting".

Jousting is a dangerous sport for humans, and a rather terrifying prospect for horses. You're supposed to let some guy wearing a big metal suit HIT YOUR RIDER. Seriously. I know they say eventing is dangerous, but this jousting thing... NOBODY hits my rider, NOBODY. I have tried to convey the danger involved to New Dad, but my every attempt falls on deaf ears. Refusing to go down the lane, stopping in the middle of the lane - how else can I explain without words that this is simply Not Safe?

My New Humans seem to think I'm being silly. They have reassured me constantly (and fed me a lot of treats) that it's OK for New Dad to get hit. At home, he's been letting New Mom hit him with a "sword" (I swear it's just a big stick) while we practice, and that's not so bad. And then I figured out that I get close to other horses, New Dad would hit THEIR riders! Well, everyone knows that I, BREGO, am boss of the entire universe, so having my rider boss other riders seems entirely fair. Also New Dad is quite adept at not getting hit, so that is good too. So now I am shouldering in to other horses so New Dad can hit their riders when we do something called "Mounted Combat", and this is kind of a fun thing.

Then, this week, we tried another crazy thing. Apparently there is a game called a "drag hunt" where someone on horseback drags a thing behind them, and then we gallop up to it and New Dad has to try to spear it from my back. I am pretty sure I did a lot of drag hunts when I lived with Other Mom and it was NEVER like this, but anyway. To practice this, New Mom got out a Scary Blue Thing and put it on a string. Then she ran all around while we tried to stab it.

(Jen in here: the things we do for our spouses, I swear.)

Going in for the kill

New Dad learned not to stare at the Scary Blue Thing so that I won't stare at it too. Because you know, when humans stare at something it usually means it's scary. Anyway, I figured out my job, and New Dad stabbed the Blue Thing a few times, and then I had a better idea: why not just stomp on the Blue Thing to stop it moving. That seemed to be the goal of this game, so I, BREGO, decided to help.

For some reason New Dad and Mom found this very funny.

So just in case you ever wondered what it takes to be a jousting horse, I am here to tell you that it's much harder than eventing or even foxhunting, and that humans must be a special kind of crazy to do this. I am fairly certain I deserve extra carrots for putting up with this.

 In action