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glenatronLast night we only had a short while to work with ponies getting to the yard around 6 with the dusk rapidly descending and, as I kind of expected after Thursday, Othello was an absolute gitmonkey. I was only asking him to pick his feet up but he was having none of it. Getting one's toes trodden on twice in two days by a heavy-set horse in iron shoes is close to ridiculous.
Today we were gifted with good weather once again and so we were able to do some good work with both ponies.
Joe came in first and we cleaned and polished his remarkably vile feet, which was necessary, then we saddled him up and Lou rode him off the yard and up the hill a little way. This was a big step for Joe, who tends to panic and bolt if he's out on his own and for Lou who tends to panic that Joe will bolt if he's out on his own. We didn't go a long way, but it was enough that it felt like a brilliant achievement, especially as everyone involved stayed calm and relaxed.
He also believes himself to be a giraffe.
We took Joe back out - I rode him bareback down to the field, which was good because I find it scary riding horses downhill but if I can do it bareback I can probably handle it under saddle - and brought Othello in. He was much more well behaved than he had been on Friday night, although he wanted to walk off round the place when we were on the yard and I spent a lot of time just moving him back so that he learns that moving while we are grooming him has no benefits to it. Then we took him out to the school and continued the work we had been doing on Thursday. Once again I had him working calmly and softly and managed to explain what I wanted to do (which was the same exercises we had done before - these are fundamental to everything else we will be doing in future) reasonably clearly - it helped to have Lou on hand to point out what I was doing wrong when things weren't quite working as expected. We only worked on backing up and turning on the quarters, but he was absolutely brilliant with it and I am once again almost pathetically proud of him.
Since he arrived last Sunday, Othello has been separated from Joe by an electric fence so that they didn't kick one another's asses straight away. Today we put him back in the field with Joe and then sat back to watch the fireworks. They were actually very calm, but then the horse in the next field came over to say hello as well and everything went balistic...
In the end Joe decided if we were going to put him out in that kind of company he might as well just take his dinner bowl and find some new owners:
Then we came home and watched Fellowship Of The Ring, which I'd not seen since The Two Towers came out. It's still great.
Today we were gifted with good weather once again and so we were able to do some good work with both ponies.
Joe came in first and we cleaned and polished his remarkably vile feet, which was necessary, then we saddled him up and Lou rode him off the yard and up the hill a little way. This was a big step for Joe, who tends to panic and bolt if he's out on his own and for Lou who tends to panic that Joe will bolt if he's out on his own. We didn't go a long way, but it was enough that it felt like a brilliant achievement, especially as everyone involved stayed calm and relaxed.
He also believes himself to be a giraffe.
We took Joe back out - I rode him bareback down to the field, which was good because I find it scary riding horses downhill but if I can do it bareback I can probably handle it under saddle - and brought Othello in. He was much more well behaved than he had been on Friday night, although he wanted to walk off round the place when we were on the yard and I spent a lot of time just moving him back so that he learns that moving while we are grooming him has no benefits to it. Then we took him out to the school and continued the work we had been doing on Thursday. Once again I had him working calmly and softly and managed to explain what I wanted to do (which was the same exercises we had done before - these are fundamental to everything else we will be doing in future) reasonably clearly - it helped to have Lou on hand to point out what I was doing wrong when things weren't quite working as expected. We only worked on backing up and turning on the quarters, but he was absolutely brilliant with it and I am once again almost pathetically proud of him.
Since he arrived last Sunday, Othello has been separated from Joe by an electric fence so that they didn't kick one another's asses straight away. Today we put him back in the field with Joe and then sat back to watch the fireworks. They were actually very calm, but then the horse in the next field came over to say hello as well and everything went balistic...
 |  |  |
| Just a bit of a trot... | ...and a canter... | ...YAAAAAAARGHHHH! JOE RAGE!!!! |
In the end Joe decided if we were going to put him out in that kind of company he might as well just take his dinner bowl and find some new owners:
Then we came home and watched Fellowship Of The Ring, which I'd not seen since The Two Towers came out. It's still great.
