Polite and passive persistence in the proper position

The rain continues and the field gets more poached and sodden. Near the barn, we are down to a newly unearthed layer of this planets surface, above which the mud floats like oatmeal.

So why don’t the horses do what ought to be “natural” and seek higher ground? After all, we have two nice hills, the shelter of an oak tree, and temperatures comfortable at 5 degrees celsius.

“We don’t buy this 24hour turn-out idea,” they say to me. “Although,you can drive us down to the New Forest and release us into the wild. We’d go for that.”

They follow Pat Parelli’s advice of practicing “polite and passive persistence in the proper position”, and by 10pm I can’t stand it anymore. I leave my warm house, my tea and my Maltesers, to bring them into the yard.

The two ponies share a cement corral with access into a box stable, but Monty goes into his own box stall to protect him from Millie, who believes he needs a snappier departure when she tells him to move, which she does frequently.

If you want lessons in how to get a quick send, take notice of how
Millie throws her energy, then her “mean face”, then her whole body with teeth forward when asking for the “Circling game”. It is a lesson in cowboy magic. If she were “working the program” as a parelli student, she would have long since graduated her Level 4 and probably be close to an instructorship. She often sends Milo flying then looks at me as if to say, "This is how its done!"