Last time I left you with tales of his 'jumping', or following really. Since then he's been to a few shows and done very well (2nd and 4th). He's very chilled out with everything at shows and will happily stand and watch a class while small horses covered in bows and ribbons go past attached to mothers with even more ridiculous attire and bunches of small children dressed head to toe in pink run at him. Aside from one maHUssive buck (when of course i wasn’t paying attention) in the warm up area, he's been a total gentleman. One judge even gave me an Easter egg to carry round for a lap of honour saying "I’m sure you can take your egg on the gentle giant"1. GENTLE GIANT!!?? Firstly, he's only 16.2 it’s not his fault the rest of the class are midgets! And second, he's only 4! How am I supposed to remain in control when cantering a lap of honour, one handed, on a four year old at his first ever show! Bless him; at least he'd made a good impression.
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| Moon in the Line Up |
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| Moon is Very bothered about his first show. . |
So after a week of going places regularly Moon has decided 'adventures' are a bit too much and he'd rather stay in the field and get fat (yup, he's definitely 'filling out'!) That added to his impatience has given us a few minor traveling 'glitches'.
Glitch one, going INTO the trailer.
This problem was first encountered after jumping practice at Kirklevington, everything jumped 1st time including the sheep of death, with only a few naughty run outs at the scary 'Road closed'. Jumping still being a bit of an ordeal, Moon decided that he had worked hard enough climbing over poles and balancing in the box all the way home was too much effort (and its boring) so he wasn’t going to go in. Nope, he would walk up the ramp then off to the left, and again, and again, and again. "No thanks" he says and when I got annoyed and shouted at him he simply went "well if you’re going to shout about it I'll just keep on walking" and promptly walked off the ramp and continued, up the lane towards the field, dragging an irate screaming human half his size on the end of a rope, grimly clinging on in the vain hope 60kgs will stop 600 if she shouts loud enough. But calmly he keeps walking until he realises I’m still there and breaks into a sedate trot up the lane to check out the fields. Well he'd better check that it’s a nice place to live if he never wants to go on a trailer again.
Soon halted by the temptation of grass he is caught and backup is called in, in the form of a bridle, to stop him just walking if in his "I'm bigger than you" avoidance technique and Gemma. Now Gemma is a special type of human, she claims to be frightened if they misbehave but is quite willing to stand behind a giant four year old who has decided the trailer is not the place to be, wielding a schooling whip. So bridle and Gemma in place we try again, he tries the walking off but with 60kg pulling one side of his fulmer snaffle he decides left isn’t the place to go anymore. So he stops. Pushing doesn’t work. Moving his leg doesn’t work (partly becuse it takes five minutes to lift them up), so out comes the whip. A few gentle taps, don’t work. So ingeniously Gemma just waves the schooling whip up and down behind him and it makes a whooshing sound, not unlike a lightsaber. Startled in he hops and stands quietly. Simple. So if a Jedi would like to come with me every time we take moon out. . . that'd be peachy :)
