Festooned with ribbons, this is Spotty, a pony I did a little work with in Kenya. An Ethiopian pony, at that stage he was still terrified of his saddle and being mounted despite the fact that he was being ridden. You can see that he has had his ears cut in his previous life and was probably beaten too. I taught Simon, his syce, how to desensitise him to new things and then left them to it. The pony was off to pony club camp the very next week and this is the result.
Two more loaders to finish this week. The first, a Thoroughbred I was meeting for the first time, was probably the most frightened I have ever met. Normally calm and amenable, he took one look at the trailer before producing copious quantities of loose droppings and shaking from head to foot. His owners have been told that he has only ever been in a horsebox but I strongly suspect that somewhere along the line he has encountered a trailer and there has been some sort of incident. Of course we will never know. I have advised the owners that it may take quite a bit of training to get him to the stage where he is really relaxed and moreover safe in the trailer. We ended that particular session with him walking in and out with no partition in place and he being able to at least breathe while he was in there. The owners now have to decide which way to go. With no absolute guarantee that he will get there, they may opt to stick with a lorry (and to buy lottery tickets). Today I have visited a lady that has done just that - she could see that her mare just wasn't going to cope with the back bar and ramp being closed without an enormous panic and the risk of a big accident - yet again, she is buying lottery tickets for her dream horsebox and in the meantime she will hire one when she needs one.
There are no magic wands in this job even though one session can make a profound difference (and sometimes be the complete answer).
