From the Ground Up....horse sense without the bees please

Beth is working with Tess trying to build her confidence with the new horse, Stormy. The idea is to focus on ground work, lunging the horse, she calls it. Bit by bit Tess is getting the feel of being in charge, of getting accustomed to telling the horse what to do, all from the ground right now. Just as important, Stormy is learning to take orders from Tess. At some point in the future this will culminate in Tess climbing aboard but for now Tess is content to exercise her new-found power from the ground. The other two horses, Barney and Sadie in the pics above, both being old and even tempered, are easy rides for the kids. Stormy is only seven and represents a different kind of challenge which is why we're going slow.

It just so happens that last week while taking Sadie for a spin in the pasture, Tess suddenly found herself hanging on for dear life as the normally placid horse got stung by wasps and began a straight line gallop for the barn. Tess screamed the whole way back, but she held on and actually rode Sadie pretty well. Fortunately, Sadie's gallop is hardly more than a cantor but the spectacle of Tess hollering at the top of her lungs on the back of an old bag of bones hightailing it to the barn was surreal and a little nerve wracking to say the least. Tess was in tears afterwards and later on when Beth asked her if in retrospect she could have chosen between Sadie or herself being stung, Tess didn't hesitate to say she would rather have been stung by bees than be on Sadie when she was stung. That's quite a statement from a girl who absolutely hates bees. Anyway, Tess seems to have put it all behind her.
K