the Amazing Grace W.

  So, Emily had her horse back riding lessons this morning on dear sweet Sugar. The lessons went great. Her instructor said Sugar did really well today, much better than last week. All was great. Afterwards, Emily's BFF Grace W. wanted to ride her. Well, the inside arena was full, the outside arena was full, so we decided to take her out into the open expance of land way out past the enclosed areas.

  As we were walking out there I noticed the "inmate horses" in the fenced in pastures were all excited by the fact that one of their own was heading out to the open pasture. But, alas, I am not a horse person so I didn't recognize that as a potentially ominous sign.

  So, we get out to the vast open pasture and Grace gets on Sugar and all is well for about 20 seconds. Something, who knows what, but something made those fenced in horses take off running and the second they did off blazed Sugar. With dear 9 year old Grace holding on for dear life. She was screaming and I'm telling you that horse was off and gone, following the trail that apparently leads back around to the barn. Well, once she was out of the pasture and around behind the fenced in area you couldn't see her at all. They just disappeared. So, I ran the what felt like 20 miles back to the barn, jumped in my van and drove as quickly as possible back to where they disappeared and followed their path. All I could think about was the fact that we're no further than a quarter mile from US31. And Sugar was headed in that direction...

  When I finally came up to the back side of the barn, there stood a guy from the sherrif posse, our trainer, Sugar and Grace-smiling like she just had the time of her life!!! I couldn't believe it. Sugar was standing there wondering what all the fuss was about and Grace was ear to ear grin. I said "Grace, please tell me you're going to ride a horse again" and she said "of course I am, that was fun!"