Another Petit Point story

So the farrier came at his appointed time. With the farrier came the farrier’s apprentice. With the apprentice came her 2yo daughter, Jesse.

Now, Jesse has spent a lot of time around horses, and obviously adores them, but she’s still two and needs to be reminded to approach them from the front, not the back. (A photograph that I missed taking: Jesse, in the hay feeder which is a repurposed water trough almost as tall as she is, squealing with delight as Recap ignored the old hay she was being offered in favor of wiggling her upper lip in Jesse’s hair.) And she was pretty good for a while, but there were four mares to trim and Jesse was gaining speed, so we put her on top of Petit Point.

Petit Point was perfectly agreeable about balancing the child while her front feet were being done, but Jesse’s wiggling was picking up again, and she was slowly working her way back, until she was nearly sitting on Petit Point’s loins. The farrier’s apprentice asked for a back foot, and Petit Point — refused. She apparently calculated that the child was going to pitch off her back if she didn’t stay planted, and keeping the child aboard was her Job.

This, you get a photo of, albeit a bad one. (I was holding Poppy and couldn’t back away far enough.)

So Farrier removed Jesse from Petit Point’s back, and her hind feet were free to move once more. (Poppy, when asked, declined hastily to have Jesse placed aboard, stating that looked nothing like a saddle and she was having none of it.)