Copy cat criminal

This is what I found first thing this morning, a real life horse thief, William our welsh cob taking a leaf out of the goats already blotted copy book and robbing the haystack.

He compounded his crime by having escaped from the safe confines of his field overnight leaving poor Trevor to wander about all alone. The goats are currently in the Goatanamo maximum security annex next to the kennels as Maggie has found a way into the garden, the vegetable garden that is, its taken her five months but shes succeeded. He arrival in the veg patch put an end to our beans, severely hampered some of the cabbages and terminated the sweet peas. They will stay incarcerated until a new fence is erected along the lane.

Williams training is coming on leaps and bounds, we have had him just over a year and he has filled out nicely, still not fully grown but strong enough to begin backing him. Tonight after work, and after I conducted another successful apple raid I walked alongside him while my ever so patient wife Tracey sat on him and rode him down the lane to our turning circle and back again. He was as good as gold and performed admirably. By the look in his eye I suspect he is saving himself for when I sit on him and at that point he will no doubt Chuck a mental, throw me off and stamp all over me.

The perils of horsemanship are nothing to the perils of the workshop landing, bring it on William, bring it on.

Things you don't see everyday

This is something you don't see everyday!

In fact its the first time I have ever seen William, our handsome Welsh Cob, lying down. We were busy in the garden building a goat proof fence, how effective it proves to be remains to be seen and as Maggie the mental goat was watching from the cottage roof an eight foot high stock fence might not pose her too many problems. After a few hours hard toil we made our way back to the cool of the cottage and just checked to see how the boys were in their stable. Trevor the Shitland practically took a chunk out of the inside of my right elbow so he was fine whereas William next door was having a lie down.

Now I thought he would stand up when he saw me but as you can see he remained on the floor. There was, I thought, no way he would let me enter the stable and stay on the floor but again he stayed put and let me stroke him.

Tracey came in too and for a full ten minutes this lovely Welsh Cob posed for photos and put up with us making a huge fuss of him.

It is a sign of how much he trusts us that he remained so calm and vulnerable allowing us to sit down with him. We are socialising him well, he is only just two years old and unbroken. We are getting him used to us and gaining his trust so we can train him to work with us on the small holding, harrowing the fields, crushing bracken, carrying wood and dragging logs, that type of work. We would like him to be able to pull a trap, or small cart which might be good fun, especially on summer evenings on an outing to the local pub. He should also make a good steady hacking horse, a plodder, I don't want a fast mentaler, a nice bombproof steady ride will suffice. So William is maturing into a nice people pony, trusting, good natured and affectionate.

Lets hope he stays that way the first time we put the saddle on him and climb on board!