Hairy pony camp does Le Trec - Part Three

Le what? Le Trec? Now that just sounded like a lot of hardwork slogging miles along tracks up highlands and down dales....get it?  No that's wrong it should be up dales and down highlands?  Only joking my new friends were great and wow were we in for a fun afternoon of laughter and entertainment (ok a few very scarey things too).

Iona pony is champion at Le Trec, so she showed us how to do everything. She is very clever and very calm and just takes everything in her pony hooves, nothing is scarey to Iona, she is well cool. This is her showing us how to canter down a narrow corridor of poles, no pressure with all of us watching!

So what did we have to do, well clearly no trekking was involved.  Our first task was to canter as slowly as we could around a u shape and then walk back as fast as we could.  Mum wasn't concentrating so I gave her left canter around the right bend, but evidently that doesn't matter, shame. Walking fast is quite hard.  Our next challenge was to do a figure of eight around some blue barrels, which we just about managed ok. Mum is using one hand honest. 

Then the tricky s bend of sticks.  If your feet touch the sticks the trolls will get you, so you have to go very carefully. We also had to walk down a line of sticks and reverse back.  Reversing is easy so that was no problem at all, it's my favourite evasion tactic for so many things so it's makes a change to be asked to do it. 

Then it got scarey.  I understand grass, Tarmac, gravel, rubber matting and puddles, but don't ask me to my feet on anything else, I don't need to.  Humans can be very silly sometimes.  Someone has left an indoor human carpet outside on pony grass.  It's not very wide so it's very easily avoided and any sensible pony would just walk around it, but for some reason known only to those crazy humans they want me to walk on it - get a life people!  And don't think making the carpet green is going to fool me into thinking its grass, it only took one look of my very experienced pony eyes to tell me it was not grass!

I think that's close enough. 

Iona pony humans may call you brave but I'm not going near it, even if you show off and give me a lead. Ok that's one to the highland ponies, sorry dales ponies. I wasn't any braver going over the pretend tarpaulin river. 

Then came what the humans called the scarey corner, oh humans you are going to have to try harder than that, I didn't blink an eye as I trotted through and nor did any of the other highlands either. 

The next test was definitely my favourite, bending through cones.  You are allowed to walk, trot or canter through them.  We trotted down the line that was easy, so Mum decided to test out how good our canter had got and we attempted to canter the whole line of cones bending between the cones as we went.

No problem at all, we did the whole line and I even threw in a couple of flying changes just to show off.  It was great fun and finished to much cheering, and I was the only pony to canter through, so definitely one to the dales pony!

There were still more tasks to complete, next ducking under fake tree branches, well we hack out and have to do this sometimes, though I caused much laughter as when Mum ducked I didn't think we were low enough so I bent my knees and ducked some more too, personally I don't see what was funny about that, I thought it was terribly sensible to protect my human from bashing her head.

As cantering is now causing us no problems it was easy for us to canter through a narrow channel of poles.  However the next task was more challenging but nearly as equally stupid as walking over green carpet, Mum asked me to walk over a fake bridge. Why? There was no river to cross, the grass all around was perfectly safe enough to walk on, no dangerous bogs to disappear in, so why? With some persuading I thought I had better humour Mum and put my nose on it (yes I know the other highland ponies were watching but it needed a very thorough health and safety check).

Iona pony was happy to walk on it so I thought I had better show willing and put my front hooves on it - happy now Mum?  I'm not going any further.

Oh how naive I was, by Sunday afternoon this bridge was going to seem like a walk in the park and I'd be wishing that was all I was being asked to walk over!!!!!

I have lots of footage of all my new highland pony friends and I'm going to put a video together for all of them of their best bits, but these are my choice edits....

Wheatsheaf trotting a super straight line through the stick channel.

Amy and Izzy cantering through the fake tree line, I wasn't brave enough to canter but the old girl Amy sure showed us youngsters how it should be done. They were never going to hit the branches. 

Isla making a great job of bending around the cones in trot, she was being sensible and not showing off, unlike me!

My mate Rannock running rings around those barrels, aren't we ponies clever to still know what you humans are asking even with one hand behind your back.

Obviously Iona pony was the best of us all, but she's a professional at this, I think it's fun and Mum says if I'm good then I may be able to practice with Iona pony some more and maybe even do a pairs competition together, now that does sound like fun.

For us ponies by then we had earned our tea and a good kip in our stables, while Mum and the other humans went off to visit the famous Nashend Highland Pony Stud, where the queen has kept some of her highland ponies - now that's posh!  Mum got to pat a lot of Highland ponies but thankfully none of them particularly took her fancy, I think I have done a good job of ensuring she is proud to own a dales and so far I don't think I have let us dales ponies down too much. Mum had a feast and I watched her return to the box on wheels looking very tired, something tells me she was going to sleep well Saturday night. I wonder what adventures were going to await us on Sunday?