I decided to just get on and see what happened, since I try to avoid lunging unless a) that's our only plan for the day or b) I think it would be unsafe to get on otherwise. In retrospect I just should have started at b, but luckily she didn't do anything too terrible. She did, however, feel as though she was half a second away from completely losing her shit when I got on, and when I asked her to trot, she had a mini meltdown in which she sort of bolted while shaking her head around and also traveling sideways. I managed to get her back into a sort of normal trot, but we were very clearly not going to accomplish anything, so I hopped off once she was behaving, and put on the lunge line. Very contrary to her usual good behavior on the lunge, she tore away from me squealing and running as soon as she was hooked up. Absolute bedlam. I eventually got her back under control and eventually went the other way (at which point we had bedlam ensue again). By the time she finished, she was dripping sweat and still prancing around with saucer-eyes. So, I climbed back on to let her cool out and maybe do some quiet trotting since, I thought, she must be exhausted. false. She was not exhausted.
I had her on the buckle because I wanted her to chill out and cool down. She proceeded to try to bolt about 5 times in a row (there was some really impressive cantering in place as she debated between behaving and bolting). Eventually I did get some flat-footed walking and some sort of well-behaved trotting and then I quit. The ride was clearly not going to get any better as we went. She was 100% checked-out.
Luckily it was a warm day, so I was able to hose her sweat-soaked self off and get her rubbed down with liniment, and then brought her back into the arena to hand-walk until she was dry. Amazingly, she was still trying to bolt at every opportunity. Darn those imaginary dragons! Hopefully they will be gone or the hallucinogenics will have worn off by the time I get up there again.
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