I went to the stables at the livery yard to get my pony in for the night.<\/p>\n
When I walked out to the field I noticed that the horse\u2019s back was covered with lots of very long, very deep scratches. Blood was soaking the tattered, shredded remains of the lightweight shower-proof rug the pony was wearing.<\/p>\n
I was absolutely distraught; crying, inconsolable with a kind of grief and a kind of guilt that my pony was in so much pain.<\/p>\n
Fresh blood oozed from the big, open, machete-like cuts as the pony walked alongside me from the field in to the yard.<\/p>\n
It looked at me with eyes filled with such pain as I tied him up.<\/p>\n
I filled a bowl with a warm, soapy solution and bathed the pony\u2019s back, to soften the crusted blood and cleanse the wounds. I peeled back the shredded remains of the rug, the warm water washed the blood down its coloured – Skewbald – back and flanks.<\/p>\n
The pony stood still and didn\u2019t fret even though I could feel its pain; it knew I was helping to make things better.<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t dry its back, because of the deep cuts. I couldn\u2019t put the pony in his stable because he would roll and the bedding would scratch in to the wounds, so I left the pony tied up outside in the hot sunshine with a haynet to chew on.<\/p>\n
Then I was at home, standing in the kitchen. I was trying to work out what could have done that to the pony\u2019s back. What could have shredded his lightweight rug.<\/p>\n
And then I remembered that the livery yard (which was a farm-based yard, in Somerset, run by a couple I haven\u2019t seen or thought about in maybe a decade), had a big – and I mean a massive – cat.<\/p>\n
I drove back to the farm and peered around the corner of the stable block and there were three very scared-looking ponies arranged in a semi-circle. In the middle was the cat.<\/p>\n
He was standing on his hind legs and was wrapped in the remains of the lightweight rug I\u2019d peeled off the pony earlier, like some kind of bad monk.<\/p>\n
The cat was massive.<\/p>\n
He was talking to the ponies in a threatening, scary voice.<\/p>\n
\u2018And remember,\u2019 he hissed. \u2018If you don\u2019t do as I say, you\u2019ll get the same treatment as that pretty little pony I had to damage earlier.\u2019<\/p>\n
I looked over to the pony who was still tied up where I\u2019d left him, and I saw those terrible, deep, vicious slashes on its back and I was suddenly filled with an enormous rage and anger.<\/p>\n
I ran *at* the still-standing-on-his-hind-legs cat with my entire racing pace and I when I reached it I punched it *hard* in the head; a straight-arm jab with the full force of my run and all of my strength combined. I hit it with every single ounce of my strength and that strength was fuelled by horror and rage and anger.<\/p>\n
The cat fell to the ground with a *thunk*. I stepped away from the covered cat-body, stood between it and the three ponies and then I kicked it *hard* in the head and I heard a loud snap.<\/p>\n
Then I stamped on its head and jumped on its body and kicked its loose, lolling head head again and again. It\u2019s body writhed in the same way that a dead chicken\u2019s body writhes after a not-clean kill.<\/p>\n
But it was dead and I kept kicking the head and stamping on the body until all of the rage was gone.<\/p>\n
Then I went over to my pony and said, \u2018I\u2019m sorry I brought you here, but everything is going to be all right now.\u2019<\/p>\n
I cried as I petted the poor injured pony.<\/p>\n
Then I wrapped up the dead cat in the even more bloodied remains of the rug and put it in a bin and went home.<\/p>\n
My dreams.<\/p>\n
Weird, huh?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I went to the stables at the livery yard to get my pony in for the night. When I walked out to the field I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}