Summer ride

Prime is now getting quite used to this "going outside" thing. We've been going for a ride several times now - always in company, naturally, and both of us are now fairly relaxed with it. We're still only going at a walk, I want to be quite comfortable with how he reacts before I try trotting.

Today we went out with my dear friend M and one of her horses. We went out past the paddock, then on the edge of the forest next to one of the fields, and continued onwards. After a while we came to a hayfield where there was a small copse. M asked if we should go left or right around it - she usually goes left, I've always gone right. So we went right.

A little less than half way around it, two pheasants flew up right under the nose of M's horse. He was naturally startled - equally naturally, so was Prime. He teleported about a metre to the right and froze in place. I'm very happy to say that I went with him, firmly seated - no falling off, no lying half across his neck, just following along with his motion. And when we'd counted the number of falls and found that it was zero, I told him that it was time to go on. Which he did, trusting me when I told him everything was OK.

The rest of the ride was uneventful. And lovely M took some pictures of us - we look like we're about to keel over on every one of them, but I'm fairly sure that's due to the angle of the camera... Mostly, anyway. They're at my Flickr feed