Sunday morning we shipped the boys to Grelo Farms for the Headwaters Stable Tour. We were asked to put together something that took five to eight minutes. We entered the arena and Zelador rolled out the red carpet (yep, bought a new one. It’s ten feet long) with Zeloso walking on it behind him. Both walked up onto their pedestals, then turned around (both directions) on the pedestal.
I then called both of them off the pedestals and to the other end for trotting and cantering around me, changing direction, coming in to me and halting. Starting off again, cantering, changing direction, coming in to me and halting. At that point Bill brought the halter and leadline to Zeloso and led him to the side of the arena. Ron brought the halter and two lead lines (attaching them on each side of the halter) to the other side of the arena. Then we did the Spanish Walk to the pedestals.
We removed the halters and Bill didn’t pay attention to Zeloso. Apparently he left the pedestal twice, but went back on. Zelador and I were at the rotating top pedestal which he played around with a bit…spun the top a few times with a hoof and after a few seconds got up on it and rotated. Thinking back on it, I’m pretty sure they didn’t like the footing in the arena. It is very shallow and looks a bit slippery.
Zelador went back to the pedestal and I introduced the song “When You’re Happy and You Know It”. I asked the audience to sing it with us and explained the three verses: big smile, catch a towel, salute. The crowd really sang well!!! Afterwards I congratulated them on their fine singing.
During the entire performance the audience was having a great time. There was lots of laughter, gasps of astonishment, applause.
On the way home I realized that you don’t hear laughter at horse shows. A year or so ago I read that horses love hearing people laugh. Mine certainly do. So much of what people do with horses is stern and serious. Good that a little (actually a lot, today) laughter crept into the equine world.
Later in the day the Equine Orchestra assembled so we could film the audition DVD forCanada’s Got Talent. One guitarist had emailed the day before that she was sick and wouldn’t make it to the filming. The other guitarist didn’t realize he needed to bring the guitar. The videographer didn’t come. I did have a back-up person for filming. A horse that is usually in the orchestra wasn’t available and a horse that’s never been in the orchestra joined in and had a great time.
We filmed five “takes” of the audition. The fourth was the best. On the fifth the carpet got turned and was no longer on the centre line. Zeloso was following Zelador and didn’t put a foot wrong. He placed each hoof perfectly on the carpet, just to let us know that he understood his job and could do it under any circumstances.
A friend looked at our audition DVDthe next morning. He said, “Go with it.” So, guess that’s what we’ll do. It’s nigh onto impossible to assemble the horses, handlers and workers and I can’t see it happening again between now and our audition date this Friday.
