Blessi and the JoJo Bean

I invited Gretchen to bring her two nieces who were interested in horses to come and meet Blessi.  Much to the surprise of both of us,  her neices Maddy, Molly, Maya (JoJoBean), Emily, nephew Nate, and sisters Shannon and Ellie all wanted to meet Blessi.   Blessi was so happy to have the mob or clan (what do you call a collection of nieces and nephews?) show up to groom him and hug him. 

Everybody had a chance to ride Blessi.  He was exceedingly good for the children but challenged the adults a bit.  Blessi was absolutely perfect for JoJo Bean, the three-year old, as you can see.  In fact, JoJo Bean decided that "Bessi" was her horse.

At one point one of the cousins was riding "Bessi" about 10 feet away from JoJo Bean when she decided to throw arena dirt up in the air and in the general direction of Bessi and shout in the sheer exuberance of having an arena-sized sand box to play in.  Bessi and I had been working on some Sylvia Zerbini liberty training in which you can toss handfuls of dirt towards a horse to get it to move (since you are working with out a longe whip or riding crop to direct the horse from a distance).  Thankfully Bessi did an intelligent override and ignored the JoJo Bean's command to trot on.

As a remembrance of the ride, I gave JoJo Bean a stuffed Icelandic horse from Iceland (made in China).  She saves the best of the homegrown carrots and sends them over to Bessi via Aunt Gretchen.