It's only the third week of pony club but tonight my absolute beginners were given an impossible challenge. The quiet kind horses they've been learning to trot were requisitioned for private lessons, leaving us the wily, experienced ponies.
I tried my best to explain that when it comes to horses small never means docile: ponies have mouths like iron bars: if you pull to stop, they will pull against you; tug of war with 200Kg.
The girls repeated walk halt transitions using their body weight and closing their thighs -
Then I let them loose on the obstacle course - paths to steer into, cones to bend round, three trotting poles in the middle...
Two feral cats growled in the dark - two ponies bolted bucking wildly - two girls held on for as long as they could -
Then green with fright, but with admirable pluck, they remouted and resumed the course.
Afterwards, they congratulated themselves: "Anne says we stayed on for almost as long as professional riders."
Perhaps they could do rodeo skills next week?
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