Horse Therapy

Today I went out to the village where the horses live, and I rode Tudor. Tudor is a young, 4/5 year old gelding, and despite his Romanian semi-heavy draught origins, he seems to think he is a flighty, prancing Arabian. Though cute in his own way, one glance will tell you he's definitely not Arab. I think.... he is probably part Hutul, the native Romanian breed, which is a typical native horse breed (similar to Icelandic ponies in this way) in that they are 

not large (about 14-15 hands high; 1 hand= 4 inches, measured at the shoulders) but very tough. Pure bred Hutuls are very fast horses, but do not have the spooky, flighty nature of other race horses (like Arabs or Thoroughbreds for example). Tudor is probably also part semi-greu, whichs mean semi -heavy/draught horse, the native Romanian draught horse breed. He's a peasant horse, so bloodlines don't play a role in this boy's life. All that matters (should matter) is performance, which, for a trail horse, should mean walking calmly and normally on grassy plains and over rolling hills, going for an occasional canter past a sheepfold, and standing quietly if his rider should choose to photograph something or take in the view. Well...

Distraction number one: The water buffalo. A well behaved peasant horse stoically walks amongst these beasts on a road pulling a card over-loaded with wood while 18 wheelers breeze by. Tudor shies and looks at them, tensely. I can't truly blame him because these Indian water buffalo look at threatening oncoming traffic and raise up their heads, and kind of look like cows from hell. This shot, taken left-handed with gloves on a moving horse doesn't quite capture their menacing look.Then distraction number 2. This is the big one- Luke, Gelu (the white speck) and Olga (on the right) are all peacefully grazing, and we had to walk right by them with me on his back, off to work while everyone else gets to relax. Tough life, horse.But we made it passed these initial obstacles. On we go, Tudor. 

We passed a sheepfold with about fifty sheep.

Here they come, swarming over the hill!

My main orientation points where these electric wires, which sort of makes me a sub-par explorer, but despite my feeling of safety and security in knowing where I was, Tudor did NOT like being alone (apparently, I'm not good company) and he would whinny like a stallion every time we passed into a valley or we found ourselves alone in a vast open space. When he wasn't trumpeting his location, and I wasn't cursing at him, loudly, the electric wires hummed like a swarm of bees or something. 

The flock had two DONKEYS with it!!! I almost died!!! Tudor was such a weenie, he wouldn't stand still long enough for me to get a good shot. But it's a pack donkey with its little baby donkey! From far off, I could see the mother eyeing us suspiciously, not answering Tudor's desperate calls, and her little baby pranced around her. SO darling.

Here's the flock the first time we encountered it. We continued on towards the right to circle the hill while the flock continued straight up this slope towards the left. You can barely see it, but there's a cart path that is very well traversed through the grasses and cuts right through the center of the herd. A couple horse carts went by, and their obedient horses ignored Tudor's pleas for attention and quietly continued on their treks. I told Tudor it was because they were properly behaved horses, unlike him but it could do with the fact that he has a good 250 lbs on some of these poor, underfed beasts.