shy's parade debut

I was way more nervous about how we were getting to the parade then the actual parade itself. I know if I am on the ground next to Shyloh, she is pretty comfortable and not spooky. But how we were all getting to the parade. . .

The plan was to drive Notch and Clutch with the hitch wagon and pony Shy off of them. The rest of the parade participants from Jaime's barn would also be riding their horses to the parade line up point. This was a 45 minute horse ride. Eek!

Could my out of shape chub of a horse keep up with two giant drafts? For 45 minutes? I had no clue. I have never pony'ed her before. I could only hope that she would just go with the flow and not decide to plant herself. Nervewracking!

The fact that we would be taking roads didn't bother me too much. Shy has never had a problem with traffic. . . the only thing she ever did when she saw cars or trucks was stop. She can't just stop while being tied to two moving drafts and a wagon! That wouldn't end well for her!

Put the bows in at the barn

Well, when we got to the barn, Jaime discovered Clutch had pulled a muscle or something in the mud and she did not want to hook him to the wagon. So Jaime's barn owner hooked her two Haflingers to the hitch wagon. And I sat in the back with Jaime and held on to Shy. 

Shy put up a pretty meek effort at not wanting to go forward. But Kyle got out a driving whip to tap her on and Shy caught on to the whole point of ponying real quick. After Kyle got back on the wagon, we had another horse stay on Shy to keep her moving. I took this crappy little video. Jaime took a bunch more from her phone and sent me them via text, but I couldn't get them off my phone. Sad face,

Besides the two Haflingers, there were six other people on horses in our entourage. We trotted pretty much the whole way there: over railroad tracks, past jerk drivers who wouldn't slow down, mailboxes, yard decorations, machinery in yards, and a ton of other potentially scary things. Shy did get wide eyed, but never spooked. She was awesome!!

When we finally got to the line up point, Shy promptly found some grass. 

Nom nom nom

I decorated her in bows, jingle bells, garland, battery powered lights, antlers, and red polo wraps. She was mighty cute! 

There are mini lights wrapped around her halter, but they are hard to see.

Shy could have cared less about the fire trucks honking and making their fire truck noises, air brakes, all kinds of lighted floats, tons of people, and cars.

Once the parade started, Shy was beyond amazing! She finally started blowing out (never once during this whole day did she make her "thinking noise"), but her head down, and walked the whole parade without a problem. The people didn't bother her, the candy being thrown didn't bother her, and the floats didn't bother her. Shy kept up with the wagon and all the horses. I was so proud of my little mare! She is a parade pony!