To ride dressage is to dance with your horse, equal partners in the delicate and sometimes difficult work of creating harmony and beauty.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Lovable Lance

Yesterday my son and I were in a grocery store when a woman behind me asked, "Do you have a horse named Lancelot?" I turned around to see a complete stranger. My surprise and confusion must have shown on my face, for she quickly interjected that her husband (she pointed him out at the deli counter) was Lance's farrier before Lance came to live with me. I actually had met this couple years ago when we went sledding near their property, although I never would have recognized them from that occasion. The woman recognized Brian, having seen him with Rick at the feed store more recently.

The farrier joined us and both husband and wife told me how much they loved Lance, going on and on about how smart and personable and handsome he is. The farrier, recognizing the need for boundaries and training in a young horse who had had too little of either, had actually worked on teaching Lance to fetch and carry! Hmmm, is that why he always has to have something in his mouth, or is that just capitalizing on a tendency he already has?
"Here, let me lunge you for awhile!"
Yesterday Lance seemed rather more nervous or full of himself than usual; hence the lunging. I think it was a combination of frisky sheep out on grass and Brian prowling through the lower pasture – or maybe it was just spring fever. It was certainly one of those days that could make you drunk on sunshine. If you click to biggify the photo below, you'll see just what a shiny bright afternoon it was.
(I sure wish I could figure out how to customize my blog layout to expand into all that white space on the left so my photos could be bigger! I've tried without success....)

After Lance 'expressed' himself on the lunge line, he was very good under saddle. I'm tickled pink with the progress we've both made since his first competitive outing; I am really looking forward to my mouthy mustang's next showing this Sunday!

9 comments:

sylkan said...

What a fine thing to find others in Lance's fan club! I love horses with lots of personality.. or is that horseality?
What's happening on Sunday? Is there a show?

Michelle said...

Yes, we're showing Sunday at Dressage for the Ages in Salem!

A :-) said...

This is exciting!! Another Show!! I hope you guys have a great time and do well :-)

sylkan said...

I can't get used to the ODS calendar, now that they list Mon-Sun instead of Sun-Sat. No wonder I missed seeing there was a show on Sunday! Best of luck to you both.

TBDancer said...

I'm confident you and the Lance Man will do extremely well at the outing Sunday ;o) Looking forward to videos, pictures AND a full report.

Michelle said...

I don't know about videos this time, Dancer, although my husband says he is coming to watch and I will try to put him to work. ;-)

Lori Skoog said...

Michelle...After you post your picture, click on it and it should show you the size and placement options. Hope it works for you.

Michelle said...

Thanks, Lori, I always do that part, but because of my template or design or whatever, the 'large' size is the biggest that will fit in the middle column. If I select 'extra-large,' part of the image is cut off. I found a different design that lets me customize the width of my columns, but it totally messes up my header. :-/

Theresa said...

Good luck Michelle, I bet you two will do wonderfully. He's looking pretty handsome. Nick was much the same way. I think they are just born that way and the farrier channeled that energy. Maybe some clicker training and working on tricks? You know, something to do with all that free time....;)