Maya the Jumping Bean

All my horses are coping with Covid times and lockdown differently. The forestry where I ride and also take the horses free-walking and grazing, has been closed all summer due to excessive dryness and high fire danger. Each of my horses has adopted its own unique coping and entertainment strategy in this time of low stimulation and exercise.

Maya, my haflinger-New Zealand riding pony cross, has become a regular jumping bean. That’s my moniker for her jumping antics. The nickname stems from when I was a kid and had Mexican jumping beans as toys. The beans are seed pods inhabited by a moth larva. When slightly warmed, by being held in your hand, the beans mildly hop. And my jumping bean pony hops fences at liberty (no lines attached). I warm her up with a few games, then point toward the jumps, and away she goes.

Maya’s propensity for jumping dates back to when she was a foal. One day, the horses were all peacefully ‘mowing my lawn.’ Maya independently grazed a short distance away, along the wire fence separating our property from the farmer neighbor. A mild tremor shook the earth, and our wood stack toppled with a resounding crash. The herd bolted, heading straight at Maya. The weanling filly was small, the fence tall. Her head barely reached the 1.2 metre (47 inches) high fence. The top wire bore deadly barbs (that prevent neighboring cows from fence-crashing). With thundering hooves ready to plow into her, Maya panicked. She tucked her legs and leaped. I cringed, expecting a vet call to stitch a disemboweled pony. But no, the agile miss hadn’t even lost a single hair on her chinny chin chin or belly.

Her jumping bean skills have continued. As you can see in this video below, she also delights in ball playing.