Oz Hicountry Mitch at Ekka 2016

 August saw Aus & I venture out to Brisbane Royal Show or Ekka to be a part of the Morgan Horse Breed Display.  Aussie was set to be on display to the public for the day in the Morgan Horse Stand then to to strut his stuff in a demonstration at 4pm.
We arrived safe & sound with Aussie casually strolling into his spot in the pavilion, not to be hassled by the camel wandering past his stable not long after arrival. (lucky he had been desensitized to these odd animals by Gilbert, our Alpaca)  After an early start to get there on time, and traffic jams to make the trip even longer, Aus had spent nearly 3 hours in the float. By the time he got out he was a bit sick of standing around and wanted to stretch his legs a bit. So we took him out into the arena for a run around so he could expend some of his built up energy. This turned into an impromptu display of liberty by Aus and I. Well didn't he turn it on the the crowd. He had them totally enthralled with how well he is tuned into my focus and body language. He was brilliant, walk, trot, canter, sideways, backups and direction changes just off my energy, in such a noisy un-horselike atmosphere. And he didn't put a foot wrong.
The thing that really blew me away was the amount of people that came back to talk to us afterwards. One lady was even bought to tears she was so impressed with how Aussie had done.
Aussie really is a one in a million pony.

Then when it came time for our 4pm demo he enthralled a whole new group of people. Again we did a liberty session then followed on with a ridden play with nothing on his head. All we had was a string around his neck (just in case we needed it) which of course we didn't use much at all.  Again we want through all the gaits, sideways, turns on haunches and forequarters simply with body language. We finished off with a chat to the crowd.