A few years back, when he had just got Hammy (Welsh Section A yearling), I remember we put Indy (aka PingPong, 40″ Shetland pony stallion) in with him and the colts for the winter.

It didn’t work.  Not a good situation.  Poor Hammy could not cope.  He was endlessly hassled by Indy so we had to put a stop to it quickly.

The answer was to take Indy back to Thordale to live with my herd colts and geldings.  We hoped there was enough room for everyone to just get on with it and Indy could play with them instead.  Some were his progeny.

It was a long boring winter and we wanted to engage PingPong’s brain.  He has always been easy to work in-hand, had been lightly backed so the next obvious stage was to train him to harness.

We went through all the stages, not moving to the next until everyone was ready.  PingPong was an easy boy.  He always liked work and enjoyed being around people.

There was the odd blip but he soon got over himself.

PingPong always wore his stallion bridle and was trained without blinkers, mainly because we didn’t have a driving bridle for him and it seemed to work safely.  He was perfectly happy with this too.  Our theory of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

What PingPong liked most was the attention and thanks.  He could completely see the point of training if there was a calorific reward at the end.

But his idea of a job well done is appreciation.  He positively glows when you tell him he is a good boy.

What a guy!