Eclectic Equestrienne: Little Girls and Big Horses

There was a little girl,

Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,

She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid.

If you have ever browsed YouTube for popular horse videos, you've probably come across Ed. Now I don't mean Mr. Ed of black and white Palomino talking on television fame. I am talking about Ed the Naughty pony, and his rider, Ross. Now Ross is either the bravest or stupidest child alive. Possibly a little bit of both. If you haven't seen Ed and Ross, here is the video.

Now I've known children like Ross, who had a favorite pony that they rode through anything and everything. They fell off more times than they can remember now. And like the commentary on Ed's video, these ponies in question had their good days (See here) and their horrid days (see above.)

I frequently think that natural selection being what it is, smaller and theoretically weaker animals like ponies only managed to survive evolution by being smarter and meaner than their larger counterparts. (Big dumb jocks, anyone?) Is there a barn around without a school horse the size of a house who will cart any kid around for hours without complaint? And its counterpart, the adorable little pony, who knows exactly how to duck his head and dart to the side to drop an unsuspecting rider in the dirt every time?

As an example of this phenomenon, today I had two of my tiny 8 year old pony riders ride two of our biggest school horses. They were hesitant at first due to the distance they were from the ground, but you should have seen the smiles at the end of their ride.