........a few months on

In a mere matter of weeks the weather finally cleared to a fine drizzle which was positively clement for our particular corner of the world, so the time came to turn Blue and Oscar out in the field. It was decided early on in our acquaintance that Pilgrim the Post wrecker was unsuitable to be turned out in the big field due to his preoccupancy with destruction. So having read a million different do's and dont's of introducing horses to each other I spent roughly 3 days painstakingly fencing off a portion of the field for each horse, ensuring each had some shade, water, access to the sun, each other, the moons gravitational pull and every other thing possible with electric fencing. Those familiar with electric fencing will know it takes a particular type of horse to be fooled by it and for those horses it is a genuis invention. You could in essence put a circular pen in the middle of the slow lane of the motorway, caravans and sunday drivers permitting, and said horse would not escape for fear of the stinging fence. However, once educated on the weaknesses of such a fence, the more cynical horse who has by nature questioned everything you have so far told him, will quickly learn that he can come and go between boundaries as he pleases. So to be on the safe side, 'the mother' and I spent a fortune on special extra tall posts with four rows of tape on, the fencing equivalent to the Berlin wall circa 1989. After 6 hours of tape attaching we were ludicrously proud of our achievements, with a gate to each compartment and all looking neat and tidy. Blue was the first to be released and reacted predictably: galloping round at full belt with mud flying, screeching at the top of his unaccountably high voice, bucking, rearing, snorting and with the rolled eye of a lunatic. No change there then. So after he was settled and back to his ever-present pacing, Oscar was introduced. No mean feat, as the field was the other side of the village. He behaved impeccably all the way, partly due to my expert handling, and partly due to there being little traffic in my sleepy village at 5am on a sunday morning: we were taking no chances! On reaching the field he was deposited into his section with little trouble and the mother and I stood back to silently gloat on our horse-handling efficiency when they spotted each other. Blue opted for a faraway glazed aura, akin to a captain surveying a battlefield from a safe distance. Both advanced like cats to the adjoining fence for the moment of truth, Blue with the air of a pit bull advancing in a fight, Oscar just out of pure curiosity. There was the mandatory nose sniff and all seemed well for a second or two until Blue let out a squeal like a stuck pig and struck out with his front leg, a classic dominance sign. Oscar to his pure credit didnt make a sound or gesture and just let the histrionic Blue continue his latin themed dance along the fence. The absolute foil in our plan however was that Oscar loves grass. So naturally, he dropped his head and starting munching with a vengeance. Sadly he gave our masterpiece of a fence not even a glance as he calmly munched his way under the bottom tape, so his head was through to Blue's side. The mother and I had gone from gloating to a sense of impending doom, whilst knowing we could do nothing to prevent it. Far from the large electric shocks that were now (supposedly) coursing through his head, it was the noise of his rug rustling on the tape that caught Oscars attention. Which naturally made for a swift head rise, and in doing so he neatly pulled our beautiful fence up by its posts so the tape adorned his ears like some kind of pagan headdress. Having assessed the situation and its possible outcomes for a second or two he calmly ambled underneath it into Blue territory. Along with the dread that filled me at the potential deathmatch, a little detached portion of my mind had to hand it to the little man. He had swiftly despatched with years of product research, development and production without apparently even noticing. Genius.