Free walking at home the day before:
Warming up at the show:
Waiting to ride the test:
In the arena:
The first ribbon (the second one was white and made a nice pair!)
And the best part of all comes after the work is done:
billie hinton’s camera-obscura:
life and lessons on November Hill Farm
I love this series!
ReplyDeleteYou should - you took the photos!!! :)
ReplyDeleteSo do we.
What super photos & 10/10 for keeping Apache Moon looking so happy throughout what sounds like a long day.
ReplyDeleteJust goes to reinforce that working with the horses & donkeys instead of being "in charge" is SO much more productive!
Thanks, Dougie - we did try to keep him happy, and we are both grateful and lucky that he is such a good sport about this kind of thing. I hope Cody can end up feeling the same way about it. And I'm glad we took some time off with Apache Moon to figure out how to do this kind of day so that he feels comfortable with it.
ReplyDeleteI can't tell you how many chains I saw being yanked yesterday. And that is not a figure of speech, but a literal anecdote. I carried a small chain in my pocket because sometimes the pony can get too zoned in on the green stuff and he has pulled away before. I have never attached the lead line directly to the chain - but wrap it around the noseband two times and hook the chain back to itself, so that if he pulls, he pushes the chain against his own nose.
Fortunately my daughter has worked with him so much this past month he is back in tune, but my gosh - I saw a woman asking her horse to back and every time he backed she pulled his chain, hard! Not sure what she thought she was teaching him with that method - except that if he did what she asked he got punished. :/
We were happy to spend our day with Super Pony!
I can only imagine the attention had one of the donkeys been along.
Apache Moon is adorable and looks so sweet. Again glad you all had a nice day. Don't know why I assumed it was Cody, my mind just does things like that sometimes.
ReplyDeleteMy mind does those things too, Arlene - I just didn't want anyone to get confused.. :)
ReplyDeleteGreat photos, they look like a great team out there!
ReplyDeleteAnn
Thanks, Ann - they had a very good day, and the pony was thrilled to get Monday off! :)
ReplyDeletecongratulations! what an adorable pair :-)
ReplyDeleteThank you! They are working on the counterbending issue and also on accuracy of the circles. Now that the pony is moving forward and feeling good, the work can go to riding him up and onto the bit. :)
ReplyDeleteI wish you could see him in person, out there among the 17h warmbloods and the 18/19h draft crosses. It was too cute, seeing that little painted pony marching around in the middle of all of them.