On Bank Holiday Monday I ran a "Turning Fear into Curiosity" course with the help of David, Kayti and Alison. Despite the odd heavy shower, it was a wonderful day. All the people and the horses that came were lovely and the highlight was a congo of ponies following the noisy tractor around the field and then weaving in and out of the bollards behind David on the trail bike.
During the last week of May I have worked with a pony that is very frightened of tractors and noisy vehicles. This seems to stem from her being run over as a youngster - even though it wasn't a tractor that hit her. We can only guess at how noisy this would have seemed at the time. On the NFED open day she followed the little grey Ferguson tractor in the field and the following day we took her up and down the track walking behind and beside the tractor before performing gentle "fly-pasts". She did well at this and became blase about the whole thing and the day after that we repeated this exercise down a narrow lane where the hedges are high. She then graduated to a bigger, redder, noisier Massey Ferguson tractor with cattle trailer attached. Again she was fine. Before she went home on Saturday, she was ridden beside the tractor and it was driven past her down a narrow lane. Eventually she was cantering with it next to her!
