Tornado's lament

I go out first thing in the morning to do some farming stuff. As I am approaching the house, Sabina pops her little head out the door. "Mama, let's go horse riding!", she commands. My dream has come true.

We grab Crownie and Tornado. I setup a little obstacle course. And off we go. Doing laps around the arena. Each of us doing sort of our own thing. But we keep talking and giggling as well, and it's a lot of fun.

After lunch and a rest, "Mama, let's go horse riding!" Sheesh. This time Sabina grabs Tornado, and I grab Gally. I don't quite trust Gally to ride him with Sabina, but I figure that a bit of playing around, and standing at the hitching rail will do him a world of good.

Now, recently, I purchased some DVD's from Wrangler Jayne. I've watched the first DVD and today I apply the learnings from this DVD to Gally. The transformation is amazing. Gally stops trying to rip the shirt off my back, and starts to gently ask if I can possibly keep rubbing his forehead.

Later when Sabina is riding, I bring Gally into the arena. Not riding, just leading. This is a bit risky, because if Gally takes off (and remember we are in a 7 acre paddock - the "arena" is simply the mowed part of the paddock), then Tornado may take off after him.

But taking off is not on Gally's agenda. He is quite happily focused on following me around the obstacle course. Every now and then he still throws in a little challenge, like a little mouthing with his lips on my jacket. I reprimand these, praise, then move on.

Sabina, of course, is also doing loops of the course, enjoying a trot and canter in between obstacles. Tornado is probably the least happy, but he puts up with it all.

At the very end of the session, Sabina insists that we wash Tornado. The hose and bucket come out, and Gally sighs a huge sigh of relief when he realises that only Tornado is being bathed.