Oakey Doak [doe-ack]...

My horse Bashum, was a lovely paint horse and like all of mine, I loved him dearly.  And Bashum and I happened to acquire a very special friend that hated the color red, who attached himself to us...  

One of my fellow boarders had purchased some goats, and kept them in a pen near the barn.  Only one of them decided HE preferred being with Bashum instead, and kept escaping from the pen just to be with him...until finally he was with Bashum for good.

I had a feeling this would be coming...one day I received a call from John, who owned the goats.

"Adelaide, how are you doing?"

"Hanging in there!  And YOU?"

"I'm doing the same."

Then silence.

"Uh John, what's up?"

"Well...I uh...you see...uh...someone bought my goats...but since I couldn't catch the one attached to Bashum, I decided to give him to YOU.  Besides, EVERYONE is saying it would be SUCH a terrible shame to separate those two anyway..."

So this is how Adelaide became the proud owner of a very obsessed little black goat named Oakey Doak who hated the color red.  To be honest, I had already grown very attached to the little squirt anyway.  Obviously Bashum adored him.  It was so charming to call Bashum when I would arrive at the farm, and see him galloping to me with dear little Oakey Doak coming right behind him as fast as he could.

Oakey Doak went everywhere Bashum and I rode...though off the farm I limited the distances out of concern for the little one.   

Often well meaning people would stop and ask if I knew there was a goat following us.  DUH.

Now goats can sometimes be territorial, and Oakey Doak was no exception.  He would go bonkers if he saw his reflection in a shiny car...which then meant attacking it with his little horns.  None of us at the farm had shiny cars, so I didn't know Oakey Doak had this desire to seriously injure his reflection, until the first time this happened (thankfully without any damage!) to someone's Mercedes which DEFINITELY was not at the farm.  From then on I kept him on a lead rope while riding off farm.  

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...🐎😃🐎🐐