Animated movies, trailrides and tarp

OK, who ever designed “Maximus” in Disney’s animated movie “Tangled” must have met Chambord! We happened to come across it the other night on TV, and OMG – in all of "Max’s" expressions we recognized Chambord. Hello Disney, if you want hire the real deal: Give us a call!

Speaking of movies, this one has nothing to do with horses, but we were both deeply impressed: “Blue Jasmine”, the latest Woody Allen movie, starring Cate Blanchett. Wow, she deserves an Oscar for her role as Jasmine!

Back to the horses – it was a weekend for lovely trailrides… and some heated discussions. It’s hard for me choosing who to take, Saumur or Remy? Saumur is “The Man” and he carefully watches who gets my attention and how much. As soon as he sees me in the pasture he comes right up to me, and if I get Remy he tries to push him away. Yesterday I took Saumur on a trailride, much to JP’s chagrin. He feels I should spend more time with Remy. But I have to admit that after all these years of runs, bolts and spooks having Saumur now marching along happy and relaxed is just the icing on the cake for me. It makes me happy to feel him FINALLY relaxed. Actually, relaxed enough to put Chambord in his place by baring his teeth.

So, for Remy I came up with another kind of ‘entertainment’: Groundwork. I like to go back to groundwork from time to time, things like yielding the hindquarters, backing up, etc. Remy remembered everything, and thought that was a snooze. To spice things up I put a large tarp in arena to walk over it. Well, after Remy wasn’t successful in picking it up he was quickly bored with the whole thing. So JP and I decided to drape him in it. NP!! (No problem). The ‘crowning achievement’ was flicking an automatic umbrella at him, again: NP. Conclusion: We have reached tarp and umbrella proficiency, now we can go back to the dressage work!