Limping Louis did it again

My daughter's pony has done for me again.

   I may have mentioned him in passing; the one an inch too short to be an actual horse but who more than makes up for it with a major attitude problem -

   He's got Laminitis - again. So even the grass hates him. And as a result he has to spend a few weeks cooped up in his box, garage, stable, whatever they call those horsey accommodations. And as he's limping a bit, but only because he gets more attention that way, I began calling him Limping Louis again instead of his stable name: Leaping Louis.

   So on Wednesday I had to lug the approximately half a ton of dung up to the festering swamp that's the muck heap because heaven forbid my daughter should ruin her new Uggs by doing it herself. And on the way back, altruistically armed with a full hay-net, almost ten gallons of water and his vet-prescribed very tiny dinner, I felt uncommonly, and foolishly beneficent towards the old ratbag.

   I should have noticed the look in his eye.

   I'm sure that number, dry frozen onto his rump should have been 666 because within the space of two seconds, it had tripped me up then stood on me, simultaneously knocked the water container off the wall, right onto my head; torn the hay-net and almost throttled me with it before snatching the food bowl from my sole functioning hand with those huge, mottled piano keys that are its teeth.

   Yet when my daughter returned moments later, presumably after checking herself for lint, there I was, soaked and gasping for air, squashed, strangling on hay net and calling for mummy while it burped satisfyingly into my face. And never was there a more innocent pony nuzzling gently at the fingers, that not five seconds before he'd been trying to grind into the cement.

   I should just try to outlive the old git but it's going to be me or him - soon.