Never Underestimate the African Zulu Trick

Well today Sheza filly made a gate in the fence where no gate had previously been before! That's right folks, at nearly 4 months old we finally had our first wild foal adventure. My farrier came up this morning (that's right, MY farrier comes on Sunday mornings! hahah don't know why but I'll take it!) and put new shoes on Blaze fronts. I pulled Desire for the farrier and since I have been riding her for short periods without the filly I thought it would be okay to just pull her for a quick trim and leave the filly. Well I thought wrong, as evidenced by the filly running full tilt at the fence and crashing into it. She hit it right next to where it connected to the gate post and the fence just popped free of its staples-- she somersaulted through it and was up and hauling ass around the yard in a matter of about 2 seconds! It was quite a sight. She doesn't have a scratch on her, thank the maker. We all stood staring with our mouths open for about a minute and then went into management mode. Luckily she was just in the still-fenced part of the yard so we swung the gate closed and stationed the hound dog at the one open corner so she was fully enclosed again. She trotted around trumpeting like a little wild beast and Desire just stood in the cross ties getting her feet trimmed, didn't bat an eye, didn't even whinny back! Truly amazing behavior I think, wouldn't most mothers be frantic or at least interested in their baby throwing a complete shit fit? I am VERY glad Desire doesn't buy into it, she is one cool customer. Once the farrier left I tied the mare just outside the gate of where the filly was and then proceeded to try to catch and halter the filly. I didn't feel like just letting her re unite with her mom and nurse after that behavior was right so we spent 20 minutes playing touch-me-not on one side of the gate while mom cleaned up hay scraps on the other side. I was pretty frustrated when finally the filly started to quiet down and then, and this is quite funny and true, our friend, who had been watching this whole chain of events, said "never underestimate the African Zulu trick" and started wiggling his fingers and making twilight zone noises at the filly who proceeded to walk right up to me and let me halter her. We did a little walk around the property, the fence was quickly repaired, and now all horses are home safe in their respective pastures. So people, the lesson here is: Never underestimate the African Zulu trick!