The DVD of the October Get-Together doesn’t have the footage I want of the boys together. So, yesterday I tried to film Zelador and Zeloso at liberty.
Knowing that Zeloso is “full of it” I took him up to the arena to play BEFORE Bill was due to arrive. Well, Bill was a bit late and when he came we found out that the CD player in the tack room in the barn attached to the arena did not have the music in it that I wanted. I told Bill where it was in the house and he went to fetch it. Time passed. A lot of time. The minus ten Celsius in the arena, which initially felt like a heat wave, was now penetrating into my bones. I gave up waiting and took Zeloso back to the lower barn with the intention of fetching Zelador. As I was leading Zelador out of the barn Bill appeared with the WRONG CD. I convinced him that he did not need to return to our warm house and that we’d make do with the one he had.
He filmed Zelador at liberty and doing some tricks. Several of the tricks took Zelador past Bill and the camera. On three occasions Zelador went to Bill, inviting him to join in the fun. What you see on the DVD is a LARGE horse nose!
At one point Zelador was calmly standing on the pedestal (he loves being that little bit taller), but you can’t see me. Then Zelador leaves the pedestal and trots off. Bill follows the moving horse and that’s when you see the orange cones with pieces of carrot hidden under them. Zelador adores that trick! He’s done it tons of times and obviously it still puts a bounce in his step. I’d set out three cones and he methodically tipped each one over to find the treat.
I left Bill in charge of Zelador while I brought Zeloso up to the arena.
Bill filmed the liberty. Z and Z were quite good together, but Zeloso lacked zip. I placed each horse on a pedestal then went to Zeloso so Bill could film his tricks. For one of them Zeloso fetches a ridged ball and places it in a basket I’m holding. Although I thought Zeloso was doing a good job, Zelador had a different opinion. He loves this trick and found it necessary to leave his pedestal to help Zeloso.
We got some nice footage of each horse retrieving a new colourful toy. I found it at a pet store (the toy’s supposed to be for dogs) and couldn’t resist it. The soft toy is a series of interlocking red and yellow rings.
The thing DOES have a “squeak” in it and for a brief moment I contemplated NOT buying it. I didn’t want a horse startled by a random squeak. However, until today I hadn’t heard a peep out of the rings. Zeloso paused to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze the toy, totally forgetting the retrieving part of his trick, and I heard a squeak. Zeloso thought this was wonderful and continued squeezing…
The weatherman is forecasting a balmy zero plus for the next few days. We’ll try, again, to capture the boys’ liberty work on film.
