Happy Christmas

Seasons greetings to everyone.  We are all having a nice rest and She gave us each a lick for Christmas, which went down very well with Posy and I.

Hanuman spent his time playing with the lid, but then he is only a baby.

Posy acquires red pom-pom

Yes, I had to babysit for Posy once more when she was taken to a show.  There is a pattern developing whereby I have to travel in the lorry, then twiddle my toes in a stable for hours while Posy charges madly round and round, and then back in the lorry again to listen to Her wailing on the way home about how disappointed She is at Posy's performance.  Posy won the red pom-pom because there were only two competitors in the Freestyle class and the other competitor was even worse than Posy.  I have been asked to gloss over Posy's performance in the first class ('dire' She said), even though three were worse than Posy, and the organisers had charitably given her a 'Placed' rosette as it was Christmas.

Posy says she found the whole competition shebang overwhelming and felt compelled to charge madly about with her nose stuck out.  That wasn't really dressage in the view of the judge.  However, She was greatly cheered because the judge liked Her 'lovely' music, so She is putting the CD away to bring it out again when Posy can do dressage.

Posy is having a rest now to get over the mental exhaustion she suffered from yesterday, whereas I have been busy delivering Christmas gifts and collecting eggs.  Then I had to trot round the arena in front of the video camera as She is now plotting some kind of music performance for me...

The ride that wasn't and Hanuman has ear trouble

My services were required a couple of days ago to babysit for Posy on a lorry journey.  I was then abandoned in a stable while Posy went off to practice her prancing, so I made sure everyone heard about my displeasure, before consoling myself with the contents of the haynet. 
 
I was then promised a fun ride to make up for having to do babysitting duties, only to find that She decided, after a very short period, that I would be unable to keep up and would have to go home.  Actually, I am sure that She was less concerned about my welfare, and more concerned about scrambling about on an exposed granite outcrop in gale force winds. 

We noted that She still managed to drink the mulled wine and eat snacks by the simple expedient of inviting the ride round to ours to have their refreshment break.  We can be seen in the background of this cctv snip, checking anxiously to make sure that we didn't miss out on any horse treats.  And no, they had selfishly bought themselves food and drink and got nothing for their mounts.  Shame on them.

Poor Hanuman had a fright today because he was unable to work one of his ears properly.  His left ear could move normally, but the right one had very limited movement.  She had to rescue him and remove the headcollar causing the problem.  Hanuman had no idea how it got stuck on his ear like that.

Posy denies making mischief

Posy does more jumping

She has decided that Posy needs to go to more show jumping contests so that she will become more sanguine about the hanging around waiting for her turn.  Posy says that she can tolerate half an hour, but after that gets increasingly desperate to do something and has to whizz round and round the warm up arena to let off steam.
Posy did redeem herself with a sparkling second place in one contest.  The other wasn't quite so successful.  Perhaps, in part, due to her rider becoming frazzled after an incident in the collecting ring when, just after jumping the practice fence, someone cantered across their path.  Posy reacted quickly to avoid a collision, but She was too surprised to react at all and fell off.  Posy was left wondering whether she should get a more reliable rider, one who didn't keep falling on the ground.
There are pictures from this show that She is too mean to buy, again.  She thought that She looked quite composed for someone who had come to grief in the collecting ring two minutes earlier.

Posy's charm, good looks and enthusiasm for jumping has earned her a couple of fans among the equine students.

Posy behaving badly

She took Posy to a show jumping contest today, which proved to be very well supported.  It was so popular that there was a long wait before Posy got her turn.  Posy was very good for the first half hour.  After 45 minutes of waiting, she became irritated at the lack of action and was pawing the ground and stamping her feet.  After an hour of waiting, Posy went into full blown tantrum mode and pranced about on her hind legs. 

 

Her 'hi-ho Silver' impersonations did serve to scatter the onlookers and clear a path towards the show jumping ring.  Finally, finally it was Posy's turn, and she duly jumped a clear round.  Fortunately, it wasn't too long before the jump off.  Nobody told Posy that the jumps had gone up, so she was caught out by the first one and knocked it down, then she just as she was releasing all that pent up energy over jump three and working herself up into warp speed towards the fourth, she found herself turning and having to jump number six instead.  It was all very confusing, but she cleared the rest and earned a carrot.  Posy also got a lecture on being patient at show jumping contests and not standing on her hind legs when she gets bored.

Furthermore, earlier this week Posy demonstrated that she isn't as bold as all that.  Witness her reaction to the new viaduct wall filler.




She won't be buying Posy one of those show jumping ear hats just yet...

Strictly Come Prancing

She has been watching a popular dance show on TV and was so taken with one of the pieces of music that She wondered if it would make a good tune for a freestyle to music.  She had to try it out on muggins here, of course.  She thought the tempo might be a bit quick.  A bit quick indeed!!  My legs were twirling so fast that they are a blur on the video.
She agreed later that it was a bit too up-tempo for me, or any horse for that matter, and confessed that the couple that inspired this initiative were dancing the quickstep.    The word 'quickstep' should have given Her a clue.  D'uh!



No, the video hasn't been speeded up, my legs really were going that fast.  I had to have a lie down afterwards.

Hanuman gets a brand new coat

Poor Hanuman has spent all his young life looking like a poor orphan boy, wearing Posy's cast off clothing.  Now he is actually bigger than Posy and so She has bought him his very own coat.

Hanuman is delighted to have clothing that doesn't smell of Posy and is very proud.  He feels it must be a reward for his sparkling performance at his first show, and has, so far, taken great care of it.