My horse Bashum and Oakey Doak, Part II...

Remember, if I haven't made this clear yet, Oakey Doak hated the color red...

Sometime after I acquired the little goat, my friend Rory and his horse Ben went riding with us one day on these amazing trails which opened up into this vast park with a huge lake.  It was July 4th.  Remember that...July 4th.

When Rory and I, our horses, and a goat who hates red arrived at the park where horses were allowed, we encountered a huge group of people having a picnic.  The kids, not used to seeing horses, came running over to us squealing.

LOUDLY squealing.  

This in turn frightened the horses.  I was riding bareback as usual, so when Bashum suddenly leaped sideways in fear, I very heroically managed to stay on...but...BUT...I dropped Oakey Doak's lead rope!  And it's July 4th, when people tend to wear RED, white, and blue!

In extremely quick succession, Oakey Doak saw a massive amount of red and realized he wasn't restrained anymore.  Rory, quickly sizing up the situation, threw me Ben's reins, jumped off, and ran after Oakey Doak.

Thankfully, Oakey Doak was a very small goat, which we had in our favor.  Next, all the kids...especially those dressed in bright red, thought the little goat was playing some kind of fun "goat tag" with them and were loving it!

Finally Rory was able to step on the lead rope as it went flying by at one point and stop Oakey Doak before he could shred lots of red clothing...or worse, gore somebody with his little horns.

As the adults oblivious to all this watched the action unfold before them, they were roaring with laughter!  If they only knew!

By the time Oakey Doak's lead rope was safely back in my hand, there was thankfully only one casualty...a kid's RED T-shirt was missing a section out of it.  However no one minded, because they said the goat and horses were SO entertaining.  In fact they insisted upon taking pictures of us with everyone!

So somewhere out there may be a photo in an album of two horses, their riders, and a cute little goat with a section of red T-shirt hanging from his mouth, surrounded by a bunch of people...with the ones with red in their clothing having been asked to please stand as far away from that little goat as possible...