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!