My brilliant babies

I had an early start this morning to be over at Trudi's for 9am, we were picking Bev up to go to the first meeting of a local (hehe, for Trudi and Bev) newly formed horse group. It was more curiosity, for me at least, as I'm already a member of another group closer to me.  I knew it would be good fun if Trudi and Bev were going along and we had a good laugh. Wanna know the name of this group?  Blazing Saddles Horse Group - hmph.... nothing to do with me!!!!

I thought about riding when I got home but it was getting late so we decided to have a little trailer training session when we brought the horses in.
We've had 2 or 3 sessions now with Remy and Bonbon and it's been interesting and enjoyable, our last session was really positive. I brought Bonbon in first and went straight over to the trailer, we'd already lowered back and front ramps.I asked her to follow me and she came up the ramp to the top, put one back foot on then took it off and just stood sniffing around and looking in, stretching her neck as far as she could but not wanting to walk in. I asked her to back down the ramp and she did so nice and calmly. Corky was standing at the gate waiting to come in so I suggested that Jim walk Corky through and I would follow with Bonbon. So that's what we did and as Corky got to the top of the ramp I followed and asked Bonbon to walk on with me. She just walked through with me and down the front ramp as if she'd been doing it all her life. I'm sure she thought 'well, if it's ok for Corky, it's ok for me', but she was so calm about it I'm hoping it will give her the extra confidence to go through on her own next time. She'd not made a big deal of it and neither did I, I gave her a pat and told her she was a  good girl and  then took her straight into the stable. I was so proud of her though, I wanted to jump up and down with glee!!
Anky and Remy were still waiting at the gate so we brought them in together and tried the same thing. Anky walked through but Remy was distracted and walked out to the side. We tried a again, but the second time he just stopped at the bottom of the ramp. It's funny,it's like he doesn't know where his legs are, he picked one of his front legs up but caught his hoof on the bottom of the ramp so just put it back down again. Jim put Anky in the stable and came back and lifted one front leg  and then the other onto the ramp. I then asked him to walk forward and he stepped forward enough to place first one and then the other back leg onto the ramp, he looked really funny, if you can imagine a triangulated piaffe, back legs almost touching the front ones. He stood for a few seconds and I asked him to walk toward me into the trailer, he hesitated, but I just kept the tension on the rope for an extra few seconds and he started to walk toward me. It was like John Cleese's ministry of funny walks. If you've ever seen a horse with travelling boots on for the first time,high stepping, you'll have a very accurate picture of what he was doing. He came into  and through the trailer to the front ramp,he was pretty calm apart from the funny walk, he hesitated at the top and then high stepped down to the end of the ramp and hopped off. He then turned towards me as if to say 'ok then, where's my treat'!  What a good boy! I praised him and took him into the stable.  My brilliant babies, they bring me joy!!!