16 July 2008

25 hands high

I got the scrap man to come and help clear a building today and he brought "staff" in the form of two youths.

In a lull in the proceedings one of them asked where my horse was.

I said, "She's in the stable next door."

So they peeped in at Ruby through the window, and said, "Isn't she little! What is she?"

I explained about the ground outside being higher and Ruby standing in the muck channel, etc, and she was 13.3hh and a Fell pony, and one of them said, "We've got a horse 25 hands tall."

"Amazing," I said, "it must be in the Guinness Book of Records."

"We just got it at Appleby Fair," he said, "it's one of those that they used to use to pull things, you know, in olden days, it's got feet this big around." (demonstrating dinner plate circle with hands). " We had to have the trailer modified to get it in, it's so tall."

"So what are you going to do with him? I assume it's a him."

"Yeah, it's a gelding, we're not doing anything with it really cos we're going to get a foal out of it."