27th June, 2007 My Name is Luker

I am so pleased to have found a really good, quiet, kind new man..... to get on the starters and remedial horses at the yard. Andy (Diggy) Luker is light and agile and much much braver than me. Yesterday he sat on Charlie the starter for the first time and Charlie made no objection whatsoever. Andy has ridden all his life and comes from generations of Commoners for whom riding is a way of life. I hope to provide a picture later.Last night I was fretting because I now have six horses in my fields - five assorted geldings and Petra P. Three bigs ones, three small ones. Two shod, four unshod. Three with catching problems and three without. Four cuddly shall we say and two that could eat for a while before there's a problem. One, dominates smaller ponies but is small himself. He also needs to get fit. This morning all my problems have gone - all six are in together - the fat ones are having to share their grass, the shod ones are not kicking, the dominant one is being dominated himself and that is keeping him fit. The wild ones have palled up with the friendliest ones and all is well with the world.For a while now I have had my fields shaped like three fitting jigsaw pieces. There's a sort of sticky out bit which leads on to the round pen. As a result, ponies come through the gate into an open but contained area where they can be worked next to their friends. This seems to settle them all with an interested queue forming in the ante-pen and at the field gate. This morning Charlie was eager to get back to work and was long reined. He was followed by Willy the wild pony who came in completely voluntarily. Jester the new boy came next having watched everything before and I took him out for a confidence walk on the Forest returning to ride Petra in her new bit and then to long rein Arnie. Piper put his head round the gate at one stage but unfortunately I hadn't got time to do any work with him today. He excelled himself yesterday when he volunteered to be first to be caught when he and Willy were both in the round pen.