Reflecting on normalsville...

Hmmm, a stormy wet afternoon today and a few things got me reflecting on what life was like in normalsville, Pre Parelli.

Firstly, a totally non horse colleague was admiring my horse pics on my desk today, and said how 'happy' my 4 looked. One of the pics was of Shiraz proudly standing on the pedestal, at liberty. My colleague said - 'I never realised horses had such characters, such.....hmmm..
'horsenalities?' I added!

Then when I got home, in gale force winds and torrential horizontal rain as soon as the horses saw me they all galloped flat out into the arena and I could hear a whinny. I thought - how many horses would leave a grassy(-ish because of laminitis risk they don't have much grass but stuff on hay all day and all night) paddock and flat out gallop into an arena to calmly wait for me - I know they aren't hungry. I acquired my beautiful warmblood mare in the UK because 'she wouldn't go in an arena', was supposed to be the foundation mare for a dressage stud, and they had heard how I'd looked after a sick horse and wanted a good home for her....

How I wish I knew then what I know now. I wasn't competitive and hacked out and did a bit of hunter trialling - problems with arenas and go buttons? Never - now I know she was a mild LBE who became LBI when bored or in an arena....

Funny, when the fencer came to fence a shed and put some gates up he asked if I wanted special gate latches to make it easy to open when leading more than one horse. Why - I asked him - totally forgetting most people lead their horses one in each hand and don't dare let go in normallsville. I've been working on my rope skills as I so rarely 'lead' them anywhere, they just come with me....

Thinking what a different experience it would be handling 4 'normal' horses in torrential rain and gales.....how lucky are we to have found Parelli...