So, yesterday was Dreki’s first birthday.

My little colt foal has come a long way in one year and grown a bit too.  He now leads beautifully, can be tied up, has all his feet picked up, albeit briefly, loads into the van and is a total treasure.  He also possibly knows his name!

This morning we brought all the little boys into the school for a brief refresher course of their training skills.

If anyone can tie themselves up, Hjalti can.  He remained calm, however, like all good Icelandic horses, while Flossie untangled him.  He did this twice because he could.

Everyone was led, had their feet picked up and then were given a bucket of grub, either as necessity (Efstur) or a token gesture (Hjalti and Dreki).   After Dreki’s gelding there has been a bit of a hiatus from training  but no one had forgotten anything, which was encouraging.

Daisy had been cleaning and tidying so we introduced them to Mr Scary-Haynets.  It was probably more frightening because it was clean!

There was also the now-mandatory presence of Monster.  He comes everywhere, fully participating in everything we do.

I suppose the horses won’t be scared of cats even when Monster came crashing/jumping out from behind the kick-boards.  Monster is more of a training hindrance than a help.  He may have to be banished or renamed The Elephant of Surprise!

So, happy birthday to my dear little boy, Dreki Dragon.