Ben arrives and chaos reigns!

Ben has finally come back from his winter holiday complete with a rather huge stomach. That means diet and that is something that Ben does not take kindly to. His modest haynet this morning disappeared in 10 minutes flat so he was put on the walker where he squealed alot, complaining that everyone else still seemed to be eating. As he was rather bright I decided a lunge would be the easiest re-introduction to work and to be fair, he was very restrained on the lunge. After jogging and spooky up to the arena and a couple of circuits bucking her realised that it was quite hard work with the extra weight and soon settled down.

Back at the yard the banging demanding more food started and so I decided that turn out was probably the best option as there isn't much grass at the moment. I tied him on the yard and then popped to the tack room to get the camera to take some first day photos. Ben obviously thought I was taking much too long and immediately pulled back, breaking the lead rope, and bounded down to the fields himself naked. As I followed him down he found the huge pile of droppings by the gate from pooh picking and yes, turned looked at me shouting "NO", he got down and rolled in it!!! After 5 minutes chasing him around he finally gave in to the temptation of food and I caught him and dragged him back to the yard. His penance for his antics was putting on the 'lovely' new, bright pink print rug that Anita so kindly sent down with him. I assume all her other horses refused point blank to wear it, as you can see from then photo even Ben looks a bit dazzled by it!

Down at the fields the other horses did look slightly alarmed at this luminous creature, not that Ben cared as he has some serious rolling to do and preceeded to spend the next hour rolling in every possible muddy patch. When I brought him in a few hours later, said rug was more brown than pink and there was definitely a smug look on his face; 'That will teach you to try and ruin my street cred and don't worry it will be all brown in a week.'

Think I need to browse through photos of Ben jumping just to remind me why I love this horse so much!