A jolly jape with a jolly ball

One of our horses, the delightful and effervescent Benney, had to be kept in a stable on box rest for a few days to recover from an injury. To ameliorate his boredom we bought him a Jolly Ball in the shape of a tetrahedron. It is made of highly robust plastic which he has dented but not broken. It has a hole in it through which treats like grass nuts can be put in and from which the horse can release them by moving it around the floor of the stable.

We put some grass nuts in the tetrahedron, put it on the floor in Benney’s stable to see what he did. Now, of all the horses we own Benney is perhaps the sharpest and most inquisitive. It only took him a couple of seconds to work out what to do to get the treats out.

It is just that Benney has never grasped the concept of playing quietly. Very soon he had the tetrahedron bouncing off the walls of his stable like a squash ball at the height of a championship match. And, the noise he was making could be heard not only in his stable block but across the yard and outdoor arena. Benney was totally animated and utterly happy with his new toy.

In the same stable block as Benney was another livery owner who was besotted by her own horse. It had a pampered life surrounded by the latest and trendiest aids and amusements available on the equine retail market.

Obviously this lady had heard the commotion exploding from Benney’s stable and came to see what was going on. She looked over the stable door.

“That looks good fun. What is it? I might get one for my boy. Could I try it with him?”

Of course she could. We took it away from Benney, filled it with some more grass nuts and popped it into her horse’s stable. He looked around from his hay net. Saw there was something different on the floor of his stable and sauntered over to investigate it. He sniffed it and pushed it around. Not enough movement to release any treats so he sauntered back to his hay net. His owner went in to the stable and demonstrated what he should be doing and how he would get treats from it but he was not interested. Her demonstration did not involve pushing it around with her face or eating anything that came out.

“I really thought he would be interested…I don’t think I’ll bother getting him one” the owner said.

“Ah” my wife said “I think he is having trouble because the tetrahedron…well, it’s an advanced level of Jolly Ball…maybe you should try him on an entry level one. We did that with Benney a while ago and then he moved on.”

We took the tetrahedron back, left it outside Benney’s stable and went home not even thinking the lady would have taken us seriously.

A couple of days later we went to our local tack shop. The manager, whom we knew quite well, came over to us and asked if he could have a word with us.

“I had a lady in from the yard you are on. Came in asking for an entry level Jolly Ball. Couldn’t understand it. We had all of them out on the counter for her. Looked at all the small print but couldn’t find anything about different levels. We even phoned the supplier but got stuck on hold for so long we gave up waiting.”

Both my wife and I were close to corpsing with the giggles. I looked at her.

“Shall you tell him or should I?”