Camp is not for Cupcakes!

Well, Alexis and I were super excited to head to Inavale Event Camp in Philomath, OR.  We cleaned our tack, our ponies, and were ready to don our seriously awesome Cupcake Tough eventing gear.  I am proud to say that Alexis totally represented and was one incredibly tough cupcake.  Mac and I were another story...
Here is Alexis and Mo cupcaked out (please note the cheetah duct tape on the boots- totally my doing):
                                         
From the get go, something wasn't right.  The Friday night that we arrived, we tacked up to go for a little jaunt around the cross country course.  Macky is a cross country machine, but when I pointed him at a beginner novice fence, he flat out refused.  As we hacked he was repeatedly spooky, balky about fences, or even just refusing them.  Finally, as we headed home, he suddenly spooked and half reared.  I leaned forward since he was going up, and he went down and promptly threw his head back- straight into my face.  You know that saying, "I saw stars?"  Yeah, I saw stars.  A flash of light at the edge of my vision to be more precise.  And then it was just pain.  Apparently, I just crumpled over.  Alexis was quite worried until my brain settled back into place and I started cursing like a sailor.  I was cupping my chin in my hand.  I pulled it away.

"Does it look alright?  It really hurts.  Does it look ok?" I asked worriedly.
"Oh. My. God."  Said Alexis.
"What, what, what's wrong?" I started freaking out.
"Uuuuummm.  Nothing, no really, it's not that bad.  Let's head back and get some ice." 

Yeah.  I really believed that Alexis.

I wish I could say that it got better after that.  That we went to bed and I woke up the next day without my Quasimodo chin and my normal sweet pony back.  It didn't.  I spent the rest of the day with conversations that went like this:

Stranger: "Oh my god!  What happened to your face?!"

Me: " Well, my horse... MAC STOP!"

  *Enter Mac running me over, yanking on the end of his lead line, eventually breaking his halter, and the well meaning person scattering out of the way.*

I didn't get to ride at all.  Sad cupcake.

Alexis and Mo were super stars though!  Don't they look great?

Now, just so you all know- Mac is not a Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde kinda guy.  He is NEVER like this, so I knew something was wrong.  It didn't excuse him for his behavior.  I'm sorry, but feeling bad is not an excuse for using your 1100 lb body to knock mom to the ground.  We suspected ulcers, so we treated for them.  And now I'm feeling like I deserved that shiner, because he is doing so much better.  And little idiosyncrasies like ticklish sides while grooming, and not finishing his grain have gone away.  He'd probably been suffering from low grade ulcers for a long time, but the long trip to camp with Mo beating him up the whole way may have caused enough stress to make them worse and therefore, more painful. 

Anyway, he's back to his normal, goofy self!