We're on!

Life has taken me through some pretty horrible twists and tumultuous turns recently, it certainly wasn't the summer we had been expecting. In times like these, the horses take a back seat and are simply looked after. Of course their every need is met, but I had no expectations from them. My mare got fat and snoozed in the excruciating heat while Ed rubbed out his glorious mane on an almond tree. The horses ate, scratched and sweated in the Mallorquin summer, needing nightly baths and a dose of electrolytes in their feed. 

We all struggle through the summer, I write about it every year and moan about the humidity and heat from May to October, it really is unbearable. The sweat pours down our faces as we heave wheelbarrows of garba to the fields, our energy is sapped walking up and down the hills, filling water buckets, picking out feet, applying the fly spray and picking up the never-ending poo. I feel exhausted most of the time, and so do the horses - which is why the summer was the perfect time to get on The (not so) Ugly Brown Foal.

One searing evening, after Ed had been lunged and worked, his trainer thought him calm enough to get on. He had had weeks of training up to this point, he had learnt how to stand calmly next to the mounting block, he was happy with a saddle and girth on his back, his trainer had jumped up and down beside him and had lent over him, so he took her full weight. The next step was simply to put her leg over him and gallop off into the distance. Of course, the next step was simply to put her leg over him, scratch him and praise him....and gently slide off. The galloping will have to wait.

And just like that the trainer was on. Except it wasn't just like that, was it? It has taken months and months of patient and gentle training so that Ed has fully understood every step of the journey - so that flipping the leg over and sitting on his back really was no big deal at all.

Good boy UBF. And thank you to his gorgeous trainer too ❤