Two Years Old Today

I celebrated my second birthday today with more bravery tests - apparently I excelled at the 'umbrella' test, but She is easily impressed since I was looking in the other direction at the time.

Anyway, She took a birthday mugshot of me to mark the occasion.

That's typical - She pressed the shutter just as I had my eyes shut.

Petal's diary ends here because this and Braveheart's blog were written to entertain my ailing father who has since died.  May he rest in peace.

Bravery Award

One day I was led out of my stable and towards the arena only to find that the arena had been filled with strange objects.  I was very surprised when She seemed to expect me to go into the arena, but She said it was a bravery test.  Not wanting to let myself down, I agreed to go in and inspect the objects.

For some reason I had to walk through a narrow space with bits of junk on both sides

 

Then I had to go round a sheep - no idea why

Then I had to walk into a space and back out again

I had to weave in and out of some very small cones

Then I was introduced to a bull obstacle because the course was called 'Working Equitation'

not sure if it was part of the course but I also had to pose in front of a rainbow

After going through all this I was given a Bravery Award!  Here I am modelling it.  Notice how Hanuman hasn't won an award and he isn't wearing a smart leather headcollar either.  She says that I am very special and should get used to winning awards.

I do 'Training'!

Officially, I am now 2 years old, and She thinks I should be starting some Training.  Actually, Training turns out to be a complete doddle.  First I had to go into the arena and walk over some poles - piece of cake!


The next time I had to go into the arena and walk over a crackly piece of plastic aka tarpaulin.  I wasn't too sure about it at first and was wary of the crackling noise, but my concerns were quickly overcome by the promise of a peppermint.  The video below is in real time and shows that from the beginning to walking confidently over a tarpaulin was less than five minutes.



What neither of these videos show is that at the end of both sessions, I dug my toes in at the gate and refused to leave the arena.

Together again!

Hanuman has been cooped up in a little pen the last few weeks, and now he has got fed up.  I have tried to help by digging a hole outside the fence, thinking that perhaps I could make a tunnel and he could escape that way.  But, before my tunnel got deep enough, he started doing a lot of cavorting and tantrum throwing, so much so that She became fearful that his feet would fall off.  Finally, She decided to bite the bullet and put us all back out together and pray that we wouldn't rush madly about.
Don't know why She thought that, because we have all been very grown up.
Here we are, chilling out together, reunited at last.

Update

Hanuman is slowly getting better and is now allowed to wander round the yard all day and doesn't have any medicine in his food any more.

Hanuman plays with branches in the yard

Posy and I have to spend all day in the field, which would be OK if it weren't for all the midges.  I have been given special costumes to stop the midges biting me.  I found that you can do lots of activities with the neck covers.  I was able to make two long tears in the the fabric, chew off the fake fur pad, remove the velcro attachments and gnaw the teeth off the zip.  I did all these achievements whilst still wearing it!  She does not seem impressed and two neck covers later, I was given one with no zip which attaches to your head, giving you comedy donkey ears.

Some of the fabric fell off the face part, I can't think how that happened.  Today, some more fabric fell off the face part and then the whole hood somehow got pulled over my face and everything went black.  I had to stagger around, completely blinded by my costume, for some time before I was rescued.  She says I have run out of midge costumes and will just have to be bitten now.  

Hanuman gets Special Treatment

Hanuman has been confined to his stable for weeks, but now he is allowed to stagger round the yard for a bit during the day.  I was allowed in the yard also, for the purposes of socialising.  Of course, Hanuman just went into my stable to see if I had left any food behind, so I snuck into his stable to check for evidence of Special Treatment.

There was the remains of wet hay, which Posy says is Special Food which must be better than what we are having, and, to make things more unfair, we are having to go outside and pick grass for ourselves, whereas Hanuman just stands there and gets food brought to him.

Evidence of haynet containing wet hay remains, and note special salt lick on a string

Furthermore, his stable contained Executive Toys, whereas we have none.  I spotted a ball which has a handle you can hold when you get tired of kicking it around.

I kicked this ball round the stable and managed a back heel manoeuvre that Ronaldo would be proud of

There was also a plastic apple on a piece of string which you could bash and make a noise.

All this evidence points to clear favouritism.  Posy and I now appear whenever She attends to Hanuman and insist that we get some of the special foodstuffs that he is getting, and quite right too.

Hanuman confined

Lately the weather has been uncharacteristically sunny and the grass is growing like mad and is very delicious.  Posy and I have eaten so much that we have to rest from time to time.  Hanuman, however, just keeps on eating and has become very tubby.  She says that if he was human the NHS would have fitted him with a gastric band ha ha.  She is not laughing now though because suddenly his feet started hurting and the vet had to be summoned.  His feet are painful, apparently, because he is a Fat Boy Who Has Eaten Too Much Sugar.  His penance is that he has to be confined to his stable and given meagre rations of soaked hay.

He is not happy and has been continually kicking his door in protest.  As a result, She has decided that we, too, should be confined to the yard to keep him company during the day, before he permanently damages himself, or the stable.

Posy is sure that he is getting Special Treatment and that the food he is getting must be much nicer than ours.  She keeps putting her neck over the door and trying to take the food out of his mouth.

Posy is convinced that Hanuman is getting Special food

I have tried to cheer him up by pulling faces outside the window.

But in the end it is rather boring being stuck in the yard all day.  I have already vandalised the drainpipe and now I am busy playing with the log pile.

I think I may try to dismantle the fencing next.

My first polework session in the arena

Imagine my surprise today when She led me into the arena - all by myself - for the first time.  It was full of strange objects, but I was very brave.   Bizarrely, She expected me to walk over poles on the ground.  In spite of the novelty of it all, I obligingly did what She wanted and received a number of treats to keep me motivated, and to distract me from the traffic noises.  If this is what Posy has been doing in the arena all this time, then it is pretty easy and I have mastered it already!

Hanuman's Birthday

Hanuman is five years old today.  He was presented with a new food bowl to replace the old one which had mysteriously developed a hole in it.  The finger of suspicion had been pointed at me, but there is no way that my playful gnawings could have made such a hole.

He had a 'lesson' this morning which is when someone comes to help and encourages him to make wobbly shapes in the arena.  They say he is not fully grown up since his back end is still higher than the front and he has yet to sprout any withers.  He also has a lot of trouble co-ordinating his legs.

Hanuman tries to organise his legs to impress the instructor

Afterwards he got carrots and treats as it was his birthday.

One today!

It is my very first birthday today!  My first year seems to have gone by so fast.  I have become accustomed to my environment, showing myself to be braver than Hanuman and more sensible than Posy.  My achievements include being good for both the vet and the farrier.  I have endured a lot of weather without complaining and had only one accident of note which has left just a small dent in my forehead.

What will the next year bring I wonder?

Dazed and confused

I was standing behind Hanuman peacefully picking up stray bits of haylage, when he suddenly shot backwards and struck me a terrible blow on the head.  I staggered round the yard seeing stars and She rushed out to see me with a large dent in my skull, blood coming out of my nose and acting demented.  The vet was summoned immediately.
The vet is used to pacifying hysterical people and explained that the dent in my skull was over my sinuses and wasn't likely to have caused brain damage, and he knew of lots of healthy adult horses going around with dents in their skulls.  Inevitably where vets are concerned, I received a number of injections but was very brave.  I had a splitting headache for a few days I can tell you.

In the yard, still suffering from concussion

The blood coming down my nose shows how bad my injury was

 Posy blamed Hanuman and gave him a severe biting.  He was banished into the field, partly for his own protection and partly so that he couldn't do anything else clumsy while I was still poorly.

Posy blamed Hanuman for my accident

Hanuman blamed the cement mixer for starting up suddenly and giving him a fright

I am pleased to report that I have survived the nasty medicine and am now feeling as right as rain.  Funnily enough, the dent in my skull has rebounded and it looks as though I shan't be scarred for life after all..

Weather update

One thing I have learned in my 10+ months is that there is a lot of 'weather'.  For much of the time it has been mild, wet and windy.  Now I hear that there is to be 'sudden stratospheric warming'.  Mysteriously, this means that it will be cold in the UK.  Now, it is cold, wet and windy.  To illustrate the point, below is a brief video of mummy's ill-fated attempt to run through a dressage test for tomorrow.



They quickly gave up.  Luckily, I was allowed to stay snug in my stable.

Blowing in the wind

We have been getting used to inclement weather.  When it rains hard for a long time, we refuse to leave our stables and neigh loudly whenever She is seen, in the hope that She will bring us food so that we don't have to venture out and find it for ourselves.
Today, however, was the record for the windiest day.  It was so windy that She put my purple outfit on me because She thought that the wind would penetrate the fluff in my coat and make me cold.  It also stopped the hailstones stinging so much.
When it wasn't actually hailing, we did venture out, but it made our hair stand on end.

Hanuman has a very short neck and he managed to keep his ears out of the wind under his rug's neck cover.  My outfit has no neck cover so my hair was looking very tousled.

Looking like an orphan

It has been very wet recently.  She mended my stylish purple raincoat, but it turns out that it has a major design flaw.  In heavy rain, the water runs under the belly wrap and makes it very soggy, so that although my back is dry, my tummy is very wet.
She fished around in her tack room and produced an alternative costume.

I was not impressed with this tatty hand-me-down.  The shame of it.  I did not want to be seen in public wearing such a thing, so I went back in the stable in high dudgeon.

It is long at the back but tight round the shoulders and makes me look like an orphan.

I hid from public view until She finally conceded that it did not fit me well and removed the offending outfit.

My First Pedicure

I have seen the farrier come and go a number of times.  I've inspected his work and chewed his tool box, but this time he headed purposefully towards me carrying a large metal implement.  It turns out that this is for scraping your hoof.  The actual hoof scraping didn't hurt at all, but I did a bit of wriggling anyway, just to show that I am not a push over.
In the end my feet had been filed into a nice shape.  Apparently this is a kind of beauty treatment that I am to have every month to make sure that my toes stay in tip top condition.

My neatly manicured toes

Christmas comes early

Posy and Hanuman have been feeling poorly lately and both had temperatures.  This meant that they had a Virus.  I didn't have one so I had to eat all the haylage that they'd left because they were feeling off colour.  It has also been windy and raining - like forever.
To cheer us all up, She decided that we could have our Christmas treats early.  We each had a little tub of stuff to lick.  Mummy and I were very keen.

I enjoy my 'cherry' flavour lick, while mummy has 'apple' flavour

Hanuman was very suspicious of his lick and didn't seem at all impressed with his gift.

Hanuman looks askance at the 'banana' flavour treat he has been given

Lorry practice

Today a motorised box on wheels arrived, and I didn't take much notice of it.  I didn't take much notice when mummy went out of the gate.  Then the engine started and I heard mummy neigh.  I suddenly realised that mummy was locked inside the metal box and it was going away with her inside!
I was really worried and called out in alarm for a few minutes.  Funnily enough, Hanuman seemed quite unperturbed, so I waited in the corner of my stable to see what would happen next.  After about ten minutes, the metal box on wheels returned and I was relieved to see that mummy had come back, safe and sound.

OMG!  Mummy is trapped inside the lorry and it is going away!

Then the same thing happened again.  Mummy went into the metal box, was driven off, and then later came back.  Both mummy and Hanuman didn't seem to think there was anything odd about this, so I figured that perhaps I shouldn't be so worried after all.

Here the lorry comes back for a second time and I am not so worried

Then everyone was praised - me for being brave and not panicking when mummy left, Posy was praised for being patient going in and out of the lorry and being driven round the block a few times, and Hanuman was praised for being a Good Babysitter.

Cunning plans

Mummy had a cunning plan to throw off one of her shoes the night before a dressage competition, thus saving her the trouble of competing.  This has worked successfully before, but I note that She has measured mummy's feet and is planning to buy hoof boots, which would thwart any future attempts to avoid work by burying shoes in the mud.

Hanuman had a cunning plan to eat a hole in the hedge at the front so that he can watch all the comings and goings along the road.
I have gone one better and eaten a large hole where the hedge meets the fence.  I am small and nimble enough to stand on the bank, and it won't be long before I can skip through the gap and munch all the yummy lawn grass on the other side.  Tee hee!

The vet is here again

I am learning that when vets come they invariably stab you with sharp needles.  The excuse this time was that it was a vaccination which has to be officially recorded in my documents.  I was very brave and got a carrot for being so well behaved.

I stand quietly, unsuspecting, while the vet readies to stab me with a needle

I have an accident

This morning my hind leg was really swollen after a mishap overnight.  The human says that I have done very well to wait for over seven months before having my first accident.  She says that mummy had been admitted to hospital by the time she was ten weeks old, and has been having regular accidents ever since.
She inspected my leg and thinks that I have sprained my fetlock since there are no wounds to be seen.  The vet is coming on Wednesday and will attend to me if my leg is still swollen.  Until then I shall have to be very brave.  Hopefully I will be consoled with extra carrots.

My fetlock joint is very swollen but it hasn't put me off my haylage.