The 2nd Return of Wind

Martina/7 and Wind/4. Wind was born here at MTBar on tax day 2005. We owned his mama and his grandma before that. He is a Chincoteague cross. He has a marking on his side (covered by the saddle) which is shaped like a martini glass. We tell Martina that this is how we are sure he is her pony since we used to call her Martini when she was very small.

Once again, Wind is home. This time he has been gone for about 4 months to a lesson barn where he was ridden by a trainer and by children and small adults taking English riding lessons. This engagement was the result of my placing an ad on Craig's list for a 'free lease' for him. The situation has worked out beautifully, though he's home now not because I wanted him back but because he was escaping every night and crossing the street and going into the pasture belonging to a local polo club. Dangerous stuff playing in the street after dark.

This is a short clip of Martina and Wind doing some fun exercises in our smallest pen.

The gig served us all well. He is a much better behaved pony than he was when he left and Martina is now truly enjoying riding him.

We are doing Pony Camp as a part of our summer homeschool agenda. Here are the materials I am using:

Beginning Western Exercises by Cherry Hill.

Teaching Children to Ride by Jane Wallace.

Riding for Kids by Judy Richter.

Let's Ride! by Linda Tellington-Jones.

Beginning Horsemanship by Jennifer Leach. (free download)

The Beginning Horsemanship book is a free download and I am using that as our guide. It is a 4H publication and while Martina is a too young to participate in 4H, she is certainly old enough and capable enough to handle the material.

Cherry Hill's book gives us a good guide for working in the arena with Wind who is only 4 and still a bit green. He is showing great potential though and he is smart and beautiful, to boot. The other books we are using for a variety of information but not as our main guidebooks because they are oriented toward youngsters who ride English. All offer a great deal of sound information.

Summer is shaping up nicely and we're having a great time.

PS: we took the saddle to have a few more holes punched in the leathers yesterday. She won't have to ride on her tippy toes forever.