Out with the big girls again!

Fabulous long reining hack out with Michelle on Holly and Nettie on Button tonight :-) We're all making the most of the last few weeks of actually being able to hack out in the evening before it gets too dark and as much as I like making sure B is completely OK hacking out on her own, it is lovely to have company sometimes :-)

All of us were decked out like Christmas trees in our Hi Vis gear - not taking any chances on this route as it's all lanes apart from the last bit. We were doing the reverse route of the last group hack we did, so technically another first (amazes me that you can still have sooo many firsts!)

Part one was down screeching car lane and we were back markers so I had some trepidation, but B was marching out so well I only led her the first couple of hundred metres then we were straight onto the long lines. I forgot to mention that as she's been so consistently good on the lines the last few times I'm now attaching them to the bit and headcollar side rings together, so she's learning all about working into the contact in a safer steadier way...almost grown up!

We'd been passed by two cars from behind already at this point. Bally was a bit eek about the first and had a mini tap dancing session at the side of the road as I'd moved her over and halted her - I think that was as much about my tension as hers, but the second time I just kept leading her and following the others and she was much better - a teeny bit tense but acceptably so.

On the lines she was great, we had a few more cars in both directions and bless her she was super going past them from then on, I could feel her confidence growing and her becoming at ease with the situation, so I just pushed her on from behind still long lining and B just kept on a marching past them.

We also had to contend with a couple out on bikes, a Landy haring across the fields to the side of us, a woman walking her dogs behind us (B was craning her neck and wobbling all over the road trying to keep peering behind her to have a nosey lol!) The most scary bit of all was passing a garden full of young boys yelling and leaping around on a trampoline, despite asking them to be quiet for a minute as all three ponies pranced past with eyes on stalks the temptation to make the horses go clattery whee down the lane past them was too great *sigh* Still I got to experience Bailarina's wonderful dragon snorting passage again lol ;-)

On down the bridleway and through B's nemesis field where she's had a proper paddy each time we've gone down the path through it ....and......nowt, she walked through on a nice stretchy long rein without a hint of trouble whoohoo!

All the way back down the flitch way now it was properly dusky and on to the yard with no problems at all, brush off and cuddle, dinner and out into her paddock

Bloody brilliant!!!