With AHS vaccination season – and hence a required six-week rest period – around the corner, I entered Arwen in one more show to cram in some cross-country practice before our rest and subsequent return to graded eventing.
It was eerily peaceful to only have one horse to dress up, load and show; I got up at the luxurious hour of 5:40 (albeit waking at 4:15), she loaded fine with a line around her butt, and we were early for our first class. I got to hack her around on a loose rein and warm up nice and slow. She responded by not producing any bucks, just one enormous exaggerated spook at a hole in a hedge (the hedge was fine; the hole was a monster).
We wrapped up a gentle walk, trot and canter warmup by opening up into a cross-country gallop down the long side of the arena, then sitting down, collecting strongly and making a 10m circle to check for brakes and adjustability. She was super, so we popped over each jump once and trotted off to our class.
I’d entered 60cm and 70cm, and when I walked the course, I was having second thoughts. The 60cm course started with three inviting little showjumps that we had jumped on August 9th’s training show. Then things started to get a bit complicated. There was a brush fence, which Arwen loves but never ever brushes; then a very tight turn to a narrow fence made of imposing black barrels (and Arwen habitually drifts). Straight after the narrow fence was two banks down, first a little one and then a slightly bigger one. Not enormous, but still a bank down. Quite a long gallop then to a large colourful house in the shade. Then a tight turn to a showjump, an enormous steep bank (Derby bank type that you gallop up instead of jumping up) and woe is us, a skinny. A proper one, and a very skinny one. The last three fences were even worse; a scary vertical made of tyres, a St. Andrew’s cross (which neither of us had ever even seen before), and a corner (ditto).
UP!
I put a prayer in my pocket and let Arwen look at the house, whereupon she promptly tried to eat the plant that was acting as a wing, before the bell rang and off we went. She merrily ran away with me towards the start, although I still had steering so I decided to diplomatically ignore the lack of brakes, and attacked the three showjumps fearlessly. The brush rushed up on us awfully soon and she jumped hugely and without a trace of hesitation. We got into a spot of difficulty approaching the black barrels; she wriggled all over the place and considered running out, but thought better of it and jumped cleanly.
The banks were quite funny. I clapped my spurs into her because I expected hesitation; Arwen was considering no such thing and took a flying leap off the bigger bank, launching me onto her neck. Luckily for her daft rider, Arwen threw her head up on landing and tossed me neatly back into the saddle. She was very looky at the house but with lots of encouragement she popped over. When we came over the vertical, she was ready to go kill something, and charged up the bank and towards the skinny at a terrifying speed. Once again, a huge wriggle at the skinny, possibly due to going too fast, but I clamped my hands and reins down and made it clear that the only way were going was over. So we went over.
We both gawped at the St. Andrew’s cross; I gawped at the sides because they looked enormous, and she gawped at the middle because it was a hay bale. We reached a compromise and jumped slightly to one side of the bale. The tyres were no problem and then we were galloping downhill at the corner. I was shouting “IT’S NOT AN OXER ARWEN” and Arwen was shouting “BOXES THERE ARE TERRIFYING BOXES” and unfortunately the boxes were under the narrow end. We reached the wide end, and I planted my hands in the mane, certain she would stop. Arwen snorted that she would do no such thing and leapt over the wide end without any apparent effort. I nearly strangled her with hugging as we walked out of the arena.
That landed us in the jump-off, which was over the first four jumps and the last three jumps. We floored it, Arwen jumped kind of in the middle of the corner, and we came second in good company.
The course grew somewhat for the 70cm; now it included a tight turn after the corner, leading to a bank up and a vertical with a big filler in it. The distance from the bank to the vertical walked for a short two strides, so I knew Arwen was going to make an easy three. I was starting to detest the corner, which brought multiple horses and riders to grief that day, including the only fall I saw.
Arwen came into the show arena blowing smoke and looking for something to attack, so I pointed her at the jumps. She charged onwards, now scared of absolutely nothing. She even jumped the St. Andrew’s cross rather perfectly. We survived the corner and then I rode Arwen straight at what she considered the arena wall. She snorted in shock and wriggled madly, but I kicked on, so she scrambled up the bank and over the vertical without further protest. This time we took the down banks in a rather more ladylike manner and even trotted at the top of the big bank, leading to a rather nicer pop over the skinny.
Arwen believes she is a derby horse
Once again we landed up in the jump-off. I knew we could either go quick or we could go clear; the course was technical and spooky, challenging for Arwen’s level, so if I was going to gun it and cut the corners we were going to have a stop. I opted to take our gallop up a notch, but to keep to wide easy lines. We jumped the widest end of the corner once again – which was by now tremendously wide; Arwen appeared to enjoy scaring the living daylights out of me – but this did mean that our landing spot set us up nicely for the tight turn towards the up bank. Having realised that this was actually a thing we jump, she jumped it unquestioningly and galloped through the finish. She didn’t stop at or knock down a single thing all day long, so going unplaced seemed totally irrelevant.
Sometimes I just can’t believe this mare. As one lady gushed as she stopped me to ask what breed my horse is, “She’s just so honest.” She has so much guts and she has so much try. “No” just isn’t in her vocabulary.
Thank You Jesus for this amazing brave little grey mare. Glory to the King who made horses and people and that wonderful, nameless thing that the equine heart does to the human soul.
This show really brought home to me the fact that Nooitgedachters, and in particular Arop Stud’s Nooitgedachters, are some of the most amazing horses in the world. Well, I always knew that, but I believe that about basically every horse I ride at some point, it’s just that this show meant my opinion is not as biased as usual.
First, we loaded two stallions and a mare in the same horsebox. One of the stallions is three years old. The other one had to stand directly next to the mare, with only the partition between them. The mare kicked the side of the box and spooked them, and then we all went off to Pretoria and they didn’t do a thing. I’d like to see that done with some of the warmbloods I’ve seen.
They all settled in nicely at the showgrounds, and then beautiful Nell went out and strutted her stuff and won every in-hand class she walked into – culminating with Grand Champion Purebred Mare.
We also did dressage, although after showing in the stallions’ championship class, we had exactly eight minutes to saddle up and warm up. As a result Nell’s baby brain was still all over the place, so we drifted down the centerline, spooked at C and bucked twice. Spooks throughout and all, she had some truly super moments and impressed the judge with her talent. We were third in Prelim, scoring 53.6%. Once she has shown a bit more often and figured out that dressage letters do not eat horses, I think she’ll pull out some awesome scores.
Raldu (long known to readers as the Storm Horse Junior) kept his feet on the ground and his brain in his head despite being a three-year-old colt at his first time off the farm, resulting in Junior Champion Stallion.
And Ryka, the Storm Horse himself, was Reserve Champion Stallion. The Mutterer handled him and I believe if I splash pictures of the Mutterer all over the Internet he might make me do another two-hour lesson of mounting without a girth, so here are some gratuitous photos of Ryka at home ferrying his little human around and being majestic.
It was an honour to show these phenomenal horses for Arop Nooitgedachters and, above all, for my wonderful, beloved, magnificent Lord Jesus. Glory to the amazing King.
For the previously unenlightened international readers: These horses are Nooitgedachters. The Nooitgedachter is a breed of small horse native to South Africa. It is a fairly new breed, originating in the 1950s from Basutho, Arabian and Boerperd stock. The Basutho pony is the main ancestor; a small, unbelievably hardy pony from the mountains of Lesotho. These ponies were agile and had enormous endurance, and were crossed with Arabs and Boerperds to add size, better movement, and better looks. The result is today’s Nooitgedachter, a well-moving, good-looking and undeniably tough little horse renowned for its outstanding temperament and trainability. It stands between 13.2 and 16.1 hands high and excels in showing, endurance, and lower level eventing, but is best known as a superb all-rounder.
Alli over at Pony’tude made my day when she opened up her Equitation Evolution blog hop. I am kind of a sucker for progression posts. Ever look at pictures of you riding and thought you may as well withdraw from the next show and spend the rest of your life herding cows bareback where nobody can see? Well, it helps to look back and realise that as badly as you suck now, there was just so much more that sucked then. (Hopefully).
Unfortunately right now I only have photos from 2012 onwards (you should see the 2010 ones. gosh.) but there’s still a difference…
Jumping
Probably the second time Magic ever saw a jump, before I even started leasing him. This must have been early 2012.August 2013. Poor old Magic. Look how grumpy his little face is. Who can blame him? At least I’m still on top.August 2015. For me the most remarkable difference is just in the way Magic is jumping. His knees, always good, are now at an unnecessary level of awesome. He’s also able to actually use his back, instead of just leaping awkwardly. And he looks happy and secure. 90% of this is simply because I’m releasing, not as much as I want to, and not quite as much as Magic needs, but already vastly better. Most interesting is that he looks more relaxed here than in the other pictures, but this is at a show and the others were taken in his home arena.August 2013. Even stoic little Arwen looks pretty annoyed with my hanging onto her mouth. She’s also jumping with a flat back, but gamely tucking her knees up to make up for it.August 2014. My first time jumping anything bigger than 50cm in the K&M and it’s showing. Already I’m giving her some more space with my hands, but my lower leg is on a mission of its own; as a result I’m balancing on my hands.My favourite photo yet when it comes my jumping position. Arwen’s getting plenty of room from my hands, but I’m not all the way up her neck. While I am a bit too far forward, I’m also balanced; my weight is in my lower leg (which is behaving itself for a change) and not on my hands. As a result Arwen is pretending to be a little warmblood and making a bascule.
Flatwork
May 2013. Yeah… moving on…May 2014, winning our first dressage show. We look better, but my toe and my eyes and my hands and my shoulders… And Arwen is quite far on her front end and quite heavy in the contact.June 2015. Not Arwen, but a far younger and less experienced horse also doing her first Prelim test. Much of the niceness here can be attributed to Nell simply being fairly amazing, but I’m at least looking up, my legs are kind of behaving and, while my arms look awkward here, it’s actually a good thing; I’m at the top of my rise and my arms are straight, keeping my hands low and still.
Ultimately it goes to show that we should all just keep on swimming and take the little steps forward, because they do add up. Nobody is going to wake up one day and be able to ride. If I can improve my release by half an inch once a week, then in a year I can go from having no release at all to having a good one.
And we are all still learning, and will keep on learning for as long as we can find someone to heave our ageing bones into the saddle. Glory to the King.
Due to life being insane, weekends being booked, and me catching flu the day before a planned outing, I haven’t been anywhere with horses since the dressage training show in mid-June. I really wanted to get back into the show ring before a showing show with the Nooitgedachters in two weeks’ time and then graded eventing in early September, so I pounced on the first open weekend and enthusiastically entered a jumping training show. With three horses. So what if I’m only just used to riding two horses at a show? I had to try sometime, and I figured that if things got too hectic and our emotional states started deteriorating, I’d just scratch. It was only a training show.
Hence for the first time I actually had more than two horses in our box, so I didn’t look like a total idiot turning up in a giant aluminium four-berth with one small pony in it. Loading was quite interesting; we had more than an hour’s drive and I was in the first class, so by 6am we were shoving reluctant equines into the box in the dark. Arwen was a horrible influence on Magic; she had to be bodily pushed up the ramp before she agreed to go in, so Magic decided he’d try that too. Luckily Magic does not sit down on people and ignore them the way Arwen does, so he was a bit quicker to get in. We were ten minutes late and Dad was already frustrated and tired when we turned to Vastrap, but that dear little horse plugged up the ramp and then rolled his eyes at the babies (Arwen digging a hole in the floor, Magic neighing frantically) and pulled at his haynet. Thank goodness for sweet little white Nooities.
They travelled more or less all right; Arwen removed her halter about ten minutes in (don’t ask me how), and Magic did his usual head-flipping thing all the way to the show, breaking his lead rein and scraping his nose and foreleg in the process. Considering he’s Magic, I won’t complain. At least he didn’t rear or hang a leg over the partition or any of the other awful things that seem to happen to Magic. (Vastrap, of course, stood quietly and ate hay).
We arrived at 7:40, so I thought I would at least have a little breathing space to get to my first class, but as soon as I got out I heard the announcer: “This is the bell to open the 40cm course for walking.” Cue absolute pandemonium. I bellowed at my sister Rainy to go and find Magic’s calmer, e. g. an unlucky friend who happens to be amazing at keeping Magic happy at shows and had hence been roped in to babysit him while I was riding the Nooities. Unfortunately, this left Dad and I alone with a box full of hyper horses, and obviously Vastrap was right in the back and so had to be unloaded last. (I think Magic and Arwen would have self destructed left to their own devices anyway).
By some miracle, Magic’s bestie arrived, Arwen’s lead was flung at Rain, Vastrap was dragged out and had his stuff strapped on, and we were only slightly late to the class. Thankfully, the show organisers were extraordinarily patient, tolerant and understanding of this crazy person that had entered three horses in three classes each of the first five classes. (I had one in 40cm, two in 50cm, three in 60cm, two in 70cm and one in 80cm; I’m sure they must have had nightmares afterwards). Poor Vastrap was totally ungroomed and had hardly gotten off the box when I was on him and walking to the warmup. Once again, thank goodness for sweet little white (sort of; he was a bit yellow and had hay in his hair) Nooities. The poor animal had about 10 minutes’ warmup before I booted him into the arena and learned the following three things:
It is possible to jump a nice clear round without having had any idea of where any of the jumps are when you rode in.
Nooitgedachters rule.
Fourways builds awesome courses.
I didn’t even get the chance to see the course ridden, let alone walk it, but I found my way just fine and dear old Trappies didn’t think twice about anything. He just said, “Yes, ma’am” and jumped everything I pointed him at unquestioningly.
And this continued to be Vastrap’s mentality throughout the show. He didn’t spook at a thing, he contentedly stood and ate hay between classes, he happily put up with being yanked into the arena with half a warmup when I was running out of time between other horses, and he jumped three clear rounds without turning a hair. That pony is worth his weight in solid gold. I kind of feel guilty that I’m not 12 years old and nervous, because then I’d deserve him better. But still, he is amazing and I love him to bits. I am going to have to find a way to bribe Mom to half lease him to me, because I need a schoolie like that.
Vastrap’s only mistakes happened as we were warming up for the 60cm jump-off. He was getting a little up and excited, nothing naughty, but he ran at an oxer and threw in one of his rare dirty little stops. Those dirty stops are my fault since the time I catapulted up his neck and ate his face (and then the fence at me) rattled him quite badly, and he stopped twice more before I finally came to my senses and left his face alone and he jumped fine. We were already late so then we ran into the jump off and went enthusiastically clear. He’s an absolute jewel. We just need to work on his habit of running at the fences like that – longer strides, buddy, not just faster legs. (And stay out of his face).
Magic was in 50cm, 60cm, and 70cm, and there were only four horses in the 50cm class. Since two of them were mine, this was a bit chaotic and I had horrible visions of me riding a brain-evaporated Magic into the class. Magic normally leads at least 45 minutes of slow work at a show in order to scrape his brain off the floor and put it back into his head. Well, we had about 20. My stomach was doing slow little somersaults when I got on, but wonder of wonders, I got onto a grownup horse that knew what he was supposed to do.
It was a subtle but important difference from the Magic I climbed onto at our end May show. Magic never, ever sets out to hurt someone, and at the shows he’s done, he’s been confused and terrified and ready to blow up but never malicious. This show, he was worried, a bit stressy, and a bit spooky… but he knew what he was supposed to do. When I asked him for a trot he didn’t go AAARGHREGOHUEHOHOWEHROEWHTOR, he said, “Mom, I’m terrified! But okay, this means trot” and did as he was told. I only had three or four laps of trot before I sat and asked for canter and he flowed straight into his gorgeous easy canter with his head down and his brain on. When I turned him to the itty bitty little cross, he didn’t do his usual trick of tiptoeing towards it and then overjumping majestically. I had him in a trot, but with a soft allowing hand, so he popped in a little canter stride as he got there and then hopped over. A little extravagantly, but nothing like his old wild springbuck leaping.
My horse knew what he was doing. He was scared, but he was okay. And so was I. Sometimes I swear we hold up mirrors to each other, because we had exactly the same frame of mind: We were both worried, we were both a little frightened, and we were both spookier than was necessary, but we knew that we knew what we were doing. So we did it, worried and all. And my beautiful courageous grey gelding jumped every single fence he saw without ever offering a stop. Everything else was terrifying, obviously, necessitating huge spooks at other horses, flowerpots, photographers, the gate (the gate was evil), dogs, and his own rosette, but he didn’t spook at a single jump. The first jump on the 50 and 60cm courses had a white latticey gate under it, and a couple of the oxers had planks in them or wings, but he didn’t care. He just jumped, because he knew that that was what he had to do. Magic is starting to find solace in his work, and to make jumping his comfort zone, just like Arwen did at the start.
I was so happy with him. Apart from one lazy pole in the warmup arena, he jumped everything cleanly. Sure, we took a few dodgy distances, awkward leaps and overjumps (though not as bad as at his last show), but I’ll take it for a young horse ridden by a total newb to thoroughbreds. Best of all, he stayed relaxed, for Magic. I don’t think Magic will ever have the dragonslaying attitude of Arwen or the workaday approach of Vastrap. Life is just too scary for him to be that bombproof and quiet, but for a horse that spooks so easily, he is very brave. I don’t mind. Magic is Magic and that’s just fine by me.
Still, his 70cm class was markedly calmer than last time. Mostly, of course, because I actually gave him a release over the jumps (our partnership has improved alongside his confidence), but also because he’s just got more miles under his girth now. He did overjump a few fences if I got him to a poor distance – including doing a rather interesting midair manoevre over the second element of a combination; somehow Magic is able to climb stairs in thin air – but he was sane and ready to go to work.
The only real meltdown he had was about having a ribbon attached to his head and then having to trot around the arena with it on. We jumped a whole invisible course, then performed a Grand Prix dressage test worthy of Valegro, finishing off with a handful of airs above the ground that Podhajsky would have been proud of. But this is the good part – it was funny. Sure, I was quite glad when his ribbon flew off and I had an excuse to get both feet on solid earth again, but my spine wasn’t melting and I wasn’t shaking when I had to get back on him. Just as Magic felt like a frightened horse that nevertheless had plenty of talent and knew his job, instead of a confused and terrified greenie, I felt like a young rider with a lot of horse under her that was riding him tolerably well and learning how to ride him better. Not like an overhorsed, petrified beginner.
The other majorly spooky object was an odd little thatch thing standing by the gate, which I assume was a wing or something, but Magic said it was terrifying and tiptoed past it. Arwen, upon entering the arena for the first time, took advantage of my loose rein and reassuring hand and took a gigantic bite out of it. Mortified, I just sat there as she walked off thanking the organisers for considerately supplying a pre-class snack.
That was basically Arwen’s attitude for the whole show. I was already flustered and tired when I got on her for the 60cm, but I couldn’t help grinning when I asked her to walk on. When Arwen walks into the warmup she owns it. She was yelling, “Let’s do this thing!” and I was with her.
Basically us at this show
She aimed a few merry kicks at some thoroughbreds (luckily letting none of them fly), almost crushed somebody’s luckless trainer (to my great embarrassment) and jumped everything unquestioningly. We blasted into and through our 60cm class, both of us having an absolute ball. On the photos later I would realise that Arwen was jumping with quite… interesting technique (in one picture she’s taking off for an oxer with both hind feet on the ground, but both forelegs flung out straight… I don’t even know). Luckily, this is showjumping. Nobody cares. We won. Arwen beamed at the pony that came second and luckily refrained from bucking in the victory gallop.
The 70cm class was a one-round speed competition on quite an open course, so obviously my fat pony came second and my thoroughbred was nearly dead last. Arwen once again had the course for dinner and was beaten only by an experienced thoroughbred with a good rider. She felt like kicking him in the lineup but I applied a diplomatic spur to her guts and she thought better of it. Victory laps on Arwen are awesome, especially when the winner let her horse blast off at a mildly inconsiderate speed; while the crowd held their breath in anticipation of Arwen’s bucking fit, she genteelly obeyed her French link snaffle and lined out in her rhythmic cross-country gallop all around the arena, flaunting her blue ribbon and informing the crowd that in America it would have meant she had won. And as we reached the gate, I brought her down to walk and threw my reins down and she stretched to the floor. No, you can’t have her, sorry.
80cm was no longer a game: I really wanted to jump clear in this class, and Arwen was on her A-game, so I was ready to ask her for it and ride my best. It was a fairly demanding course, with a couple of related distances and a two-stride combination (Arwen’s nemesis; in a 6-stride line she has space to add for seven strides, but a two-stride is just too short for three and just too long for two), as well as at least two max height oxers, but she was as brave as the day. I concentrated hard on using my inside leg to flex her around the turns so that she came to the jumps straight and balanced, and the team effort paid off; we went clear.
Unfortunately, by the jump-off, my energy and concentration were leaving me and I was giddy on our previous success. I forgot that my inside leg even existed and poor Arwen was asked to jump the oxer at number seven from the most preposterous angle. She tried anyway and took the rail, but when I got her to a similar angle with even worse balance at number eight – an oxer and the first element of the double – she said, “Uh, human, hello??” and stopped. She really can’t be blamed for this, but accepted her bad luck at having me for a rider with good cheer; we circled around, I rode a better line, and she jumped it without a second glance. Then we accidentally jumped two extra fences because I forgot the course, but the organisers graciously let this slide.
She jumped this clear, despite the angle and the distance. But hey, at least position is happening here.
We were an exhausted but happy bunch that trooped back up to the horsebox. Magic had, at one stage, pulled free of his bestie; but to everyone’s relief (and my pride) he ran two steps and then stood in the road looking confused while helpful bystanders tiptoed towards him. Magic’s bestie is a lifesaver. I can hardly express what a relief it is to take my poor, delicate, sensitive creature from someone and find him in an even better frame of mind than he was when I gave them to him.
My legs didn’t want to leg anymore, but luckily the horses all loaded and travelled well, so the day ended much better than it had began. It was a great day filled with amazing horses, awesome people, and of course the reason for all we do and the strength behind all we ever achieve – our beloved, magnificent, merciful Creator God. Glory to the King.
So poor Milady has arrived, albeit unannounced on the blog. We picked her up on the fifth of July and catapulted the poor unsuspecting lady into the long adventure that is life with the Horde.
Milady has been an absolute angel. She hasn’t been in a horsebox for almost two years, but with a line around her bottom we hauled her right up. She travelled just fine and when I turned her out in a little paddock by herself, neighbouring the group she was to join, she wandered around, did a tremendous floaty trot across to the hay, and settled down to eat. I wasn’t home during the day for the next week, so poor old Milady was stuck by herself in the little paddock. I wasn’t sure how introductions to the other horses would go as Flare and Arwen can both be jerks to new horses and between trying to be a good protective beta and his overwhelming friendliness, Thunder can be quite a shock to them. Hence I was waiting for a day that I’d be quietly home all the time so that I could slowly introduce her to the electric fences and new horses and hopefully avoid one of her perfect slender legs being broken (I always worry about those wonderful legs; clean as they are, well as they stood up to her racing career, they always look like little toothpicks compared to the stocky mongrels’).
Milady saved me the trouble. One night, bored of being by herself, she simply climbed over the wooden section of the fence and introduced herself to electric fences and new horses. When I got there the next morning they were all eating around the bale like one big happy family, and nobody had any broken legs. All the fences were still standing, too. It was quite amazing.
Who says thoroughbreds can’t trot?
Last week I finally started to work her again, first with a little lunging session just to dust off her memory. The ring is right inside Skye’s group’s paddock, so to get there one has to drag a frightened new horse through a highly excited and curious bunch of other horses, which is always a little hairy and sometimes necessitates several well-placed elbows when new horsie tries to clamber over me in an attempt to get away from my evil minions. Milady wandered in, raised a hindleg at Exavior in warning when he came snuffling over, and calmly followed me to the ring, where she went to work like she’d done it every day of her life. Lunging is still not her favourite but she was just as good as she’d been the last time we lunged.
Friday was a horrible day to work horses. The wind was both howling and icy; Arwen had nearly sent me flying on our fitness ride earlier that morning from pure excitement, and everyone else was running around showing the whites of their eyes like a bunch of hooligans. The wind had got up the Holsteins’ tails too and they were galloping up and down in their paddocks while bellowing loudly, and twenty head of overexcited heifers running about is enough to make any horse a bit wild. I had limited time the next day so I decided to get Milady out anyway even if she just tore around on the lunge line and burnt some energy.
She plugged around on the lunge all calm and chilled, so much so that I was convinced to hop on, even for just a walk around the ring. (I had had a new horse for three weeks and still hadn’t ridden it – it was killing me). I clambered on, she stood like a rock, and we started meandering around the ring. The wind chose that moment to grab the edge of one of the shelter’s corrugated iron sheets and then bring it down on the wooden support with a deafening clang. Skye’s group took off like rockets and tore past the ring; David went airborne; the Holsteins lost their minds and I prepared to say my last words. Milady (five-year-old OTTB, hadn’t been ridden for almost two months) raised her ears at the other horses, as if slightly shocked by such appalling manners but much too polite to say anything.
What are you doing, new little human?
We proceeded to have an awesome ride around the unfenced arena in walk, trot and canter and Milady didn’t put a toe wrong. Her nickname suits her better than I expected. She has impeccable manners, excellent breeding and a noble bearing. The rest of the Horde, who normally look like wonderful sweet ponies compared to other horses, are a bad influence and taught her how to escape the paddock (she was the first to repentantly come up to me when I eventually found them trying to break into the cow barn). Apart from succumbing to bad peer pressure, Milady has been an absolute wonder so far.
She leaves me a little sad that one can’t breed and compete on a horse at the same time. But I suppose that that’s exactly the horse one should breed with. Thank You, Lord Jesus.
Riding on Water 