No riding for me, although the weather cleared up beautifully by 5. When I got to the farm, J's granddaughter came running out. She's about 10, and very sweet, but she's not a farm kid. She was excited to see the horses, though.
And of course, she wanted to ride if I was going to. Unfortunately, she doesn't have any idea of what is and is not a good idea - running under them has evidently happened in the past. (gulp!) But with the rest of the horses in the lot, I figured it would be safe enough to give her a ride around the pasture on Sunny. At least that way, there'd be only one set of hooves for her to end up under.
When she saw Sunny standing there with just his halter on she was a little doubtful. Apparently, you need to have a saddle to keep from falling off the horse, and he also needed a metal thing in his mouth to keep the him from biting.
And she wasn't sure she wanted to try without both of those. So I hopped on and demonstrated that it was possible a) not to fall off, and b), that I didn't get bitten.
And she really did want to ride. Several squeaks and shrieks later, she was up, with a big grin on her face. Bless Sunny, he stood very patiently while we figured out the logistics of getting her on. He likes kids, and doesn't ever seem to mind when they make odd noises - but thank goodness he's not any taller!
We walked a few slow laps around the field while J took pictures.
Sunny got plenty of pats and praise for being a good boy. So that was my ride for the evening. Better luck today, I hope!
2 comments:
Very kind of you and Sunny to oblige - she'll remember that and perhaps she'll learn more about horses!
She's a sweet kid - I told her to talk to her folks about riding lessons, because I know there are places near where she lives to ride. It would really please her grandmother if she had one horse-crazy relative! :)
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