As I mentioned yesterday, Sunday was ADVENTURE TIME with the boys. I’m really loving the rare weekend days where I have nothing to do but play around with these two idiots.

I took much the same approach this weekend as I did last weekend. We started out with ponying – which Presto has gotten a little bit cocky about as of late. I think he finds it to be a really fun game, and he’s not intimidated by anything at all, so sometimes he tries to nip at Henry or canter in place. He’s funny though, in all of his antics he never actually pulls on the lead rope. He’s just really excited to be there, bro.
Originally I had wanted to just do a nice long walk on the hills, but Mr. CanterOnTheSpot had ants in his pants, so we went for a big long trot lap of the entire field first. That 10 minutes was enough to take a lot of the cockiness out of him, after which we were able to settle and walk, with a few bits of stopping to practice standing still (Henry’s favorite – Presto’s least favorite).

I brought them back in and decided to chop both of their manes off, then it was bath time again. Henry is trying his hardest to do his “I don’t have hair here or here or here” summer routine, so I’ve been keeping after him daily with my variety of shampoos and tinctures. Presto has stayed funk-free so far (he’s fading into a buckskin really quickly in the summer sun though, which is sad) so he just got hosed off and then had to stand in the wash rack and wait politely while I attended to Henny. And when I say “wait politely” I mean wait not-at-all-politely, as he proceeded to try to very deliberately stomp on the hose for the next 15 minutes.

Since Henry kind of ruined courtyard grazing privileges last weekend with his attempted escape (why do they take turns being brats?), I stuck them into the little front paddock with the citrus trees. I took Henry’s lead rope off but left Presto’s on at first, to continue his lessons with the drag rope while I supervised.
As soon as I let them go I could see the mischievousness in Henry’s eyes. Sometimes he just gets that cheeky look about him where you can tell he’s just waiting for the right excuse to be naughty. But they both just walked off and started grazing, and I figured maybe I was wrong.
I was not wrong.
A few minutes later Henry spotted the chickens, and that was exactly the excuse he’d been looking for. He took off bucking and leaping and galloping and squealing and farting. Poor Presto was tagging behind like “Oh, are we spooking? FUN!”, while Henry proceeded to run around like a rodeo horse for the next 10 minutes. Even Presto got tired of his shenanigans and tried to go back to grazing, but Henry would come blazing past him again and Presto would have to duck and cover to get out of the way.


I decided to rescue Presto a little bit and at least take the drag rope off, since he already had enough problems with his idiot brother the bucking bronco.




Presto alternately chased him and then got chased, but he kept it mostly to a trot, because he’s never impressed. It was almost like they were playing tag.

I eventually had to stop their game and take them in, because Henry was getting a little TOO rambunctious. Total idiot, I dunno what wild hair got up his butt. Clearly being ridden 6 days a week with a ramped up conditioning schedule isn’t taking anything out of him. Not feeling particularly guilty about the summer horse shows anymore.
When I put Presto back in his pasture he tried his best to continue the game of tag with his donkeys, but they were 0% interested.


Watching Henry and Presto interact definitely brings me a lot of joy, even when one of them looks like a coked out dolphin and the other is a baby giraffe. Life is never boring with these two!
My boys were similarly feral when I tossed them out together the other day but I was tacking up Paige and didn’t get media.
Presto needs MOAR donkeys.
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These two donkeys get chased a lot. They’d like to vote him out of the pasture.
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Photo of Henry leaping – that boy is working over his back nicely and look at that canter pirouette developing. Your boys antics give me hope for an entertaining world ruled by equines- keep the photos and commentary in the pipeline-it’s the BEST way to start my day 🐎
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Dear Henry, You might not have been bred to be an eventer, but you definitely weren’t bred to be a cutting horse. 🙂 It’s been hot and humid here too, and May has decided all she wants to do is RUN AWAY… horses…
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He’s so lazy in the summer, but sometimes he gets that wild hair up his butt. He’s a weirdo.
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This made me smile, thanks for sharing. I needed that today.
Sometimes it’s really hard to believe that Henny is a pureblooded tb.
I think Presto added a a tiny bit of “bulk” to his frame lately…he doesn’t look quite as spindly here. And yes, he is lovely in motion. So uphill.
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Yeah Henny is definitely not living up to the TB stereotypes. He fits right in with all the QH’s at the barn.
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Aw! I love everything about this. Bros being bros. ❤
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A COKED OUT DOLPHIN! I’m dead. That’s the best description of a bucking maniac I’ve ever heard. Absolutely stealing it.
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He is 100% a coked out dolphin.
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LOL those donkeys LOOK TINY by Presto and i have met the donks before they are not that small LOL I mean yes smaller than Presto but still. EEK I have a little over a month before I get to see the dynamic duo in person!
Henry cracks me up with his enthusiasm. I guess he was glad you werent making him do dressage so he got a wee bit over exhuberant 🙂 oh Henry never change 🙂
they are cute together. How much fun this all must be but exhausting too keeping up with two!
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To be fair, Dudley is the smaller donkey. Bob is a bit bigger. And don’t be fooled by their size, they are little shitheads.
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so three shitheads together in a field ? LOL
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Yep. They all deserve each other! But apparently every day around mid-morning Presto chases the donkeys around and plays cutting horse with them. I keep getting people telling me how funny it is, but I have yet to witness it.
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I seriously think Henry is a QH who got accidentally registered JC.
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I would believe that if I didn’t have DNA verification that he is indeed TB LOL
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I love their derpiness so much.
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The wild hair moments always make me laugh and shake my head at them. It’s like “Really? Do you really still have that much energy left? You were just complaining about being too tired to work!” Haha. I love seeing your boys together though. Such a handsome (if goofy) pair.
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