Connie!, lV
We’re so effing pastoral. Cow and everything.
When I wasn’t busy trying to aim and fire I was thinking things like ‘remember to sit up straight’. ‘Raise hands.’ I have my riding lesson tomorrow, er, later this morning, I will be able to put all this in practise. Yes. Mmph. Yes! I said yes!
And there’s only one canter shot because I kept catching her in one of those in-between positions with her legs all at weirdly vague dangly angles. I should have taken a few of New Project who still canters like he thinks he has six legs and can’t find most of them.
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Pastoral or not, it looks like a wonderful, open area. Perfect for riding. (And so green! How’s the rain there? :S)
SQUISHY. By my hacking day on Saturday it’ll be marsh again. Sigh.
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Oh! She’s beautiful!
Yes she is. :)
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Oh I say! Well *done*! Great photo. Great mare :)
:)
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Looks like a dream horse to me.
Soooo lovely. WANT. I have a horse of my own, much beloved, but spooky. And is that a cow in the background? You would not see my horse within a county’s distance of a cow…. I need a Connemara to add to my TB. :-)
Oh, thoroughbreds! Yes. They *will* get over their cow thing (or their pig thing, or their . . . ) EVENTUALLY. Really riding in the next field over is the way to do it. I admit the PROCESS is not necessarily a lot of fun. . .
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Not behind the bit in this one, I don’t think. I agree, she is a lovely mare.
Connie is even nicer than I’d imagined… and being a huge Connemara fan, I’d imagined her as being pretty spectacular :)
But you know, I’ve always LOVED your descriptions of horses…you capture their personalities :)
Thank you! But to me . . . horses ARE personalities. As I say, it’s all about RELATIONSHiP. Well, it is to me. :)
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Yes, it’s definitely about relationship… the horse who thinks he owns me would agree with you. He’s got such a strong personality that I really do know just what he’s saying most of the time… He’s only just 4, a TB/Clydesdale cross, and has the exact personality, unfortunately, of the sort of boys I dated in high school. Arrogant, convinced of his own beauty, and liable to spend his evenings writing bad poetry. Not my horse, but I sure do love him… something like you and Connie, I imagine!
I would NOT want to tackle a 4 yr old TB/Clydesdale cross! Have fun! :)
Oh, I don’t RIDE him! I’m *way* too wimpy for that! I’m just Truman’s ground crew – the other half of his brain….
When you said grass belly, I was imagining something like our camp horses have. A couple of them look like barrels with legs! (Seal, for instance, is really not that far off from his namesake.)
I think she’s lovely, and the belly’s not so bad. ^_^
She’s a beautiful girl, lots of expression in those dark eyes (and they really stand out on a “grey” face). Lucky you!
Do you ride?
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No. I read all the horse books as a kid, and had casual acquaintance with a few horses many years ago, but horses, lessons, etc. were not an option in my family. But I’m sure my parents were convinced that I have Danes because I didn’t get to have a horse!
I’ve seen ponies smaller than Danes! :) But Shetlands are built to carry weight, which Danes are not. (Whether your average Shetland will go along with it or not is a whole other question. Give me a horse any day. They’re a lot more amenable!!)
Yes, I gather that ponies tend to be on the snarky side. Miniature horses are definitely smaller than Danes. When we lived in California, some people in the next town who had a miniature horse as a house pet were being harassed by the town council for having livestock, which was a zoning no-no. They went to court and I believe won.
what a lovely, sweet, honest looking mare!
Yes! :)
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Oh MY! She looks absolutely like a picture-horse, the kind we used to dream about when we were girls…
LOL! Yes, exactly right! –Although the picture horses never made horrible faces when you did up their girths. :)
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What a lovely place to ride – much nicer than being cooped up in an indoor school. jenny sounds so sensible to be choosing her acres and “evolved” yard rather than a tiny immaculate soulless place. Lucky New Project to be there :)
Absotively. :) He’s had a stay of execution too–Jenny was supposed to turn him into a contender in a fortnight but she’s now got him for a whole entire month.
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It’s amazing how a few weeks with the right person can change a horse’s life by starting them out right.
I read something by Lucy Rees (horsey guru) ages ago about her and a cowboy both using their different methods to “break” a mustang each. It was an attempt to show that teaching rather than battling could get the desired results; hers went on to be a child’s pony, the cowboy’s was so damaged that he was useless…
Yes. And this boy is one of those who’s really trying to do what he’s asked. It’s one of the reasons TBs are worth all the melodrama, they tend to be like this.
Any chance of a photo – with or without extra legs? He sounds a sweetie; many horses faced with a whole new set of rules would just explode, but he sounds as if he’s making a lot of effort to go with the new flow? What a nice person (horse)
Hey, we’re still waiting for the photos of CRUFTS. He has a lovely attitude. That is kinda TB for you though–not that they all have it but if one doesn’t you can be disappointed. Jenny says day after I saw him however he just *couldn’t* get the right hand canter and got very frustrated so she was going to hack him today.
What a lovely, sweet horse with such beautiful eyes!
I don’t know why you were “apologising” about her for! (Well, all right, I do – rationally I can agree that people looking at Sassi might think that she’s an “ordinary” house cat, rather pretty – rather than the most wonderful, adorable, intelligent cat the world has ever seen, beuty and brains combined…)
You say Jenny is short – what do you mean by “short”? I’m wondering because when I rode, in the stable the horses where in one aisle (if that, as Bertie Wooster would say, is the word I want) and the ponies where in the other and the horses looked like I could walk under them upright, and Connie doesn’t. (Of course I was 12-13 at the time, but then I was ca 152,5 then and am 155 now, so there’s not much difference really.)
(And Connie’s eyes make me think of Milton; yes, I’m absolutely soppy – if, again, that is the word I want – about Milton; but then I grew up watching him and he was truly magnificent, magical, wonderful…)
Milton is/was the right colour, but he never had a grass belly! –Connie is also a show jumper really, but her willingness to try isn’t quite matched by her ability to get over, which is why **I** get to ride her and Jenny isn’t out earning bags of money on her!
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