Bored Button

We haven't yet found a solution to our trailer problem, any suggestions welcomed!

My lovely sane moon is back. And behaving like a good boy again. Nothing much has happened but i thought I’d let you into the wonderful world of bored Moon. Firstly he loves his food, like any man does. But when he's licked every last inch of the bucket it becomes his favourite toy. He picks it up, flaps it up and down and throws it everywhere. He’ll stand for 10mins after breakfast and play. All fun and games for him but i sometimes have to trek a good 100m to go get it to fill it up again! 
I've even devised a game for both the boys to keep them occupied. After feeding them all I stack up all 6 buckets with treats in between then watch them sniff and lift all the buckets off to find the treats. Took a long time first time, not so the long second!

Moon entertaining himself whilst being tacked up

He also has a 'treats ball' one of those decahedron things you will full of food and then they push it around (or try to chew his way through the outside of it in Moons case) and the treats fall out. I put i t in for both of them to enjoy but poor Zonda (moons field mate) is not allowed near it before Moon. Even if Zonda has been nosy and is near the gate when it gets thrown in Moon will run across the field to nose it around first. Now Moon does not run voluntarily, he’s far too laid back for that but for the bright red ball, he will canter completely of his own accord, right across the field. Just to make sure he gets there before Zonda eats all his treats! 

Zonda or Houdini as we like to call him is Moons field mate. Moon is too socially inept to share a field with herd boss Polly who will kick anything within a 10 foot radius whether it was coming at her or not. He’d just wander up behind her dopily and then wonder why he his leg hurts so much as it's hanging off at the knee, so he is always kept separate from her and the girls. He used to live with darling Cleo who was the only one who accepted him as a friend when he arrived as a completely socially retarded creature who didn’t know how to groom another horse or how herd politics work but Moon loves to play to cure his boredom he likes to bite and buck and occasionally run. So does Zonda! Which gives rise to the biting game. An amazing invention that could only have been invented by two boys. You stand, face to face then bite each other’s neck. Hard. You don’t run away, just bite. It’s a bit like the horse version of 'slapsies'. occasionally when it gets really serious you rear up at each other to see who is the tallest (always Moon) but mostly it’s about who can bite the others neck the most. (You can see whey Cleo quickly grew sick of sharing a field with the boys).  Moon usually loses. Well in human terms loses i.e. he always has more hair missing and more cuts on his neck. He does seem to get Zonda a lot but he has no hair missing off his face, which is a shame when Moon is the one who has to stand in front of a judge wondering why my horse has gone bald in random places on his face, not Zonda. Maybe moon is too soft. That would make sense. . !

The Biting Game

 
Moons other favourite thing to do, apart from eat play with his bucket and the biting game is rolling. He loves it. Especially after getting showered off after riding. However he has a rather special way of doing it. He paws all the mud or dust up lies down and rolls one side, all very normal. Then he sits up, just like a dog, walks his front legs around his bottom like he’s doing a sitting half pass and collapses to scratch the other side, it is so funny. Sometime he just sits and surveys the world, possibly imagining what it would be like to be a dog and live on the sofa and not have to do any real work! It’s a shame he’s too big for the house. He'd love it!

Dog Sitting

 The Boys Just Chilling Out

 

Too Big for his Boots and his Box

Another long pause between posts, we were very busy going places and seeing new things and moon has been sharing his attention with Polly, so amongst tack cleaning, horse washing trimming, mane pulling hitching and unhitching an update has been severely neglected.

But recently all Moons adventures have given him a big head, sorry and even bigger head. His Extra Full bridle will attest to the actual size of his head.
Going places, being clever and jumping things and behaving well has given him the idea that he may know better and that cantering wildy round the field ignoring the midget pulling at him is his way of putting his view forward. Clearly it’s much more fun than poncing around in a dismally slow trot with your nose tucked in, or dressage as we humans like to call it. So after a few cancelled lessons and finally pinning down the busiest dressage trainer in the area only to be told "you’ve completely changed the way you ride him, and not in the right way." We have gone back to basics. And a flash. And along with a jumping amnesty, it seems to be working. Sane moon is back. Until he gets tired, and then leaping right towards the gate with his head pinned to my left leg is very appropriate. Well it gets the message across. “I have had ENOUGH"

Moons short attention span is becoming a little issue. We talked last time about loading. Now when he’s IN the box he is calm and relaxed, and likes his treats he gets for going in. But the novelty soon wears off. When we pull away he whinnies madly to Little Zonda who is only 3 and so desperate for adventures of his own he runs up and down the fence whenever anyone gets to go in the trailer. A journey of 10-20 minutes is fine, any longer or any bumpy lanes, or traffic lights and he gets bored. Bored bored bored. In order to communicate this to anyone in the vicinity (in case passing pedestrians see his poor little face stuck in a box and decide to free him) he bangs the floor. Hard. Again. And again, and again. In fact it’s becoming a problem, he's scraped the rubber flooring so it’s got a dip in it, and his reach is so far that as you look in the wing mirror you can see the jockey door bulging out intermittently. It will only be a short time before it flings open in transit and he terrifies himself with the moving floor outside. So a solution must be found, i have tried putting him on the left hand side but that only saves the paint in the jockey door the floor still needs rescuing, and quickly!

So far the only solution i have come up with is a boot. A poultice boot on one hoof will not scratch my floor as badly and hopefully will not take any more paint off the walls! Not sure how this will go down with moon, he's not too keen on things attaching themselves  to him, i am not sure he will like me putting his foot in a trap and THEN making him go in the trailer. If anyone has anymore less ‘special’ solutions please let me know!

The Reluctant Adventurer

Well it’s been a while, partly because we've been busy and partly because Moon has been behaving quite normally until recently!

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.

Moon in the Line Up

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 :)

Working Hunter ?

Yesterday it was finally time for Moon to take a trip out to hone his jumping skills around a full course of jumps. Jen very kindly lent us the course at Kirklevington and away we went, rather early in the morning!

Loading is a dream as you just hold the lead rope in one hand and a bucket of chaff in the other and he follows you in. Travelling is 'boring' after 10 mins and necessitates banging the floor every time you stop in traffic and trying to reverse out of the shut trailer. Oh and whinnying a lot and you leave your friends behind!

Travelling all done and Moon wanders out in his own time,( making sure he tidies the floor of any chaff he dropped getting in) and stands quietly in the car park, having grown a good two inches! 

Tack on and leg up and we make our way into the huge arena...

There are jumps everywhere, all beautifully built, and decorated with bits of fir trees completely covering the wings and each fence has its own pristine and horse scaring filler including: little dairy houses, fake sheep, a road closed sign on the Second part of the double, two stiles in a row and just to add to the effect, a cuddly snake woven into the ladder filler on the FIRST fence!

First reaction to a full and rather terrifying working hunter course (did I mention Jen builds the most difficult courses I've ever seen?) is to walk backwards into the 'grooms'. After a little 'encouragement' he realises backwards isn’t really an option and he trots nervously round the edge of the arena making sure the sheep get a VERY wide berth!

After a good trot and canter round in and out of all of the fences it was time to start going over. A quick conversation as to which is the least horse scaring fence (it was a little difficult to find one that had NOTHING scary about it!) and we chose an innocuous cross pole with little houses pushed right out to the wings. A big open space to jump, plain poles, it looks inviting even! So we trot round calmly to begin our first course. All goes smoothly till 2 meters away and we bounce to an abrupt halt. A quick nudge to try and move him forward again results in him snaking his neck in a way that’s only just possible for a horse and running sideways shaping his body into the best impression of a 'C' as he can manage. Those houses are clearly not safe. A quick smack and things get worse, now we are shuffling rather quickly towards the wall, backwards. And back, and back, and back until he suddenly hits bum off the wall and jumps forward again in surprise!  Now miles away from and horse eating houses we stop to asses the situation.

A moment later a little voice suggests that she walk over the fence first. Doubtful of this plan I agree and trot back up to the jump to join the 'groom'. (We have no problem getting to the fence, we can get as close as we like, just not over!) As close as he can to  the shoulder of our 'leader' we shuffle towards the cross pole and with his head all but ON her shoulder she steps over and Moon braces himself and lifts his front legs, and pops over, almost landing on our poor helper!

Laughing we come round again and reluctantly hop over on our own. A few more times and we have some rhythm so we land and aim straight for the next fence, the first part of the double (part b removed!). Its plain rustic poles with viaduct fillers, and a couple of kicks and some tactical steering and he steps right over first time! Yey, he's brave!

Next up is the snake, which requires a lead again, from one of our trusty helpers but again as soon as he has a human to follow he’s straight over. This time a warning call is required mind jump to avoid us actually landing on her! We continue with the walls (moved out to the side) and we feel like we've got some momentum.

So now it’s time to tackle the sheep.  . . The sheep are either side on the wings separated by straw bales and so far have been strategically avoided by Moon even when i try and trick him by Turing at them from a different angle or a very short approach. Overestimating his bravery we head for the sheep in a lovely strong trot and two strides away swiftly run sideways doing his 'c' impersonation. (Head and back legs in one direction - body and neck in another). Time for our trusty helpers again. This time he's been tricked one too many times and one helper going over is not enough. BOTH 'grooms' have to go over and even then we're not taking to the air over THAT. After both humans have been observed stepping over he will do exactly the same, carefully he lifts one leg and gingerly puts it on a bale, leg two is on and leg 3 and four all find their way ONTO a bale before safely stepping off the other side.

So now we're all set for the lead rein jumping! I wonder if they let people run around with 16.2hh horses??