Galahad has always been good at escaping into places he should not be.  If there is a way out of a field he will find it so I really need to be extra careful about checking all the gateways when I turn him out.  Sometimes though, I have moments of careless oversight.

I recently turned the ponies out into a small paddock without realising that a hurdle was slightly out of place and had left enough room for a pony to squeeze out.  Luckily it only led along our stream, not onto the road and even more fortunate was the fact that I came out and found him very soon afterwards.

I wasn’t too worried – I just had to catch him and take him back.  Nobody was in any danger.  Then he decided he wasn’t ready for that and jumped into our neighbour’s field (there isn’t much of a hedge there – it is mainly a ditch and a drop from our side).  The grass next door was pretty long and it’s quite possible that Galahad did not realise how far down he would actually go.

I had to walk round to the farmhouse and apologise profusely for my pony, whilst still observing social distancing.  Then I had to try and catch him.  Galahad found himself in a large field filled with far more grass than he has at home.  Why would he want to be taken away from that?  I spent a very embarrassing time completely failing to get hold of him.  He did try a couple of times to climb back over the hedge but it was much harder going the other way!

In the end I resorted to trying to herd him which was also pretty difficult – again, it was a large field and there was only one of me.  Eventually though, he allowed himself to be moved up to the farmyard where we could corner him and my Dad could grab hold of his fly mask.  I got out of there as quickly as I could!

Galahad had looked very beautiful in all that long grass but it is definitely not an experience I want to repeat!