This may amuse

[glenatron]

On Wednesday we were finally confronted by Zorro's arch-nemesis, the hedge monster, as we rode along the doom-laden side of the school and- with a fearsome rustling sound - a small blackbird popped out of the hedge, landed on the post by Zorro's head and glared at us. Although the noise perturbed him slightly he didn't seem overly nervewracked by the bird itself which wasn't a whole lot bigger than one of his furry ears. The blackbird was clearly a somewhat lairy individual though as he hopped from fence post to fence post as we went along, glaring at us.

The memory of this trauma obviously stuck with Zorro because on Friday we had a bit of excitement on the ground and then, after calming down from that, a couple of spooky moments when I was riding. For your entertainment, some of these were captured on low-quality digital camera video:

Watch on YouTube

I'm well aware that my lack of riding skill and experience will stick out like a sore thumb to those of you who have expertise in that direction so I'd prefer not to have my manifest failings pointed out unless they're subtle ones I'm not likely to be conscious of.

I was quite impressed watching the second spook frame-by-frame to see what an angle Zorro drops to and just how much scenery is visible between me and the saddle three frames later...

Comments

[penella22.livejournal.com]

good job riding through that! your sense of balance obviously served you well. :-)

i like having video clips of my riding, cuz even if it is only low-quality digital camera stuff, i can see my position and get feedback without paying an instructor...which is nice. and, later on, I can look back and compare and really see the progress I've made. which is also nice.

I have to admit, I feel irritated with your pony just watching that! I am probably in no position to judge because it is just a short video clip, but for some reason I want to assume that he is misbehaving / challenging your leadership rather than being truly frightened. :-| Lucky for him that you are a more patient being than I...

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

He wasn't liking the squeeze between the far end of that jump and the hedge, he felt that was well within pouncing distance for any tigers in the bushes, so he was trying to get away from me asking him to go through that.

I think he is genuinely nervous of it and he thinks he needs to rescue me from it as well, he's not trying to shift me really he is just trying to move both of us to what he considers a safe distance. Which is right over on the other side of the school.

He's been fine without the jump there but he tries to drift away and that stops him doing that and makes him feel a bit confined. I'm thinking about maybe setting up some blocks along that side that we can then weave around so that not only does he have to deal with going between the block and the hedge but he has to start thinking about his feet and what I'm asking him to do so he doesn't think about what is going on in the hedge. I'll try it out on the ground first, for the obvious reasons...