When Iacs and Haakon go out together, they have a little private conversation about when they want turn round to go home.  We always ignore this conversation and make them go on.

Apparently, though, I am only a passenger on my own horse – so I have heard.

Today, Daisy and I decided to conduct an experiment to show the extent of our passive riding abilities.

Look – no hands!

Yup, and me too!

Daisy re-arranged Iacs’ mane so we could see his ear transmitters.  It all works through the ears.

We will be going along perfectly happily when Iacs will flick his ear back, whereupon Haakon will reply.  If we ignore it, both Haakon and Iacs will make a circle/pirouette and suddenly we are facing the opposite direction going home very fast.

Usually we stop this stunt before it happens but today, fuelled by the passenger remark, we wanted to see when the independent thought would occur.

If you watch the film, you will see it happens twice.  The first is because there was a car which meant the horses wanted to ambulance-chase – total apologies to the driver who must’ve thought he being pursued by the Nazgûl.  And then there was a bolt for home at the end of the ride.

Ok, we can do this because there are very few cars about and once the horses turn for home  we turn them back and make them go on, albeit grumbling.

We came to the conclusion that if we rode as passengers, we wouldn’t actually get anywhere.  I think not.  To ride our horses, you have to have input and to anyone who thinks we are sacks of potatoes on horseback, I invite you to come and ride Haakon or Iacs.

Take your pick.