Godmother training

 Training, means getting ponies ready for trains. Actually that isn't what training means at all, except in this one case. I am now going to be unbearably smug. My training system, the God Mother concept,(background) (blurb)really works. In many ways I would rather not have the proof the system works, because the proof scared Obama, and me, badly. I would NEVER deliberately test my system under these conditions.
But Obama and I survived unhurt and with no lasting problems from a scenario that was deeply unfunny. We were trying to get the Bannedwaggon over the top of the Bruce Tunnel, the high point of the Kennet and Avon canal. The track is narrow, stepped, steep and runs through a 40 foot long 6 foot by 6 foot tunnel under the main London to Exeter line.
I was bringing Obama past the Bannedwaggon which I then jammed across the tunnel behind us, ready to take Obama on up the steps to the top. As Obama emerged from the tunnel, I heard the express roaring down. I couldn't move back because of the Bannedwaggon, and couldn't move forwards because that meant pushing Obama towards the onrushing train, not a direction he wished to go. So I stood there, telling  Obama everything was fine as he got steadily more distressed.
His nostrils were huge, the whites of his eyes blinding, his posture just screamed "get me out of here!", but he didn't move, he didn't pull, he didn't try to crash through me to safety, he just stood there because being with me seemed safer to him than the alternatives. The reasons are in the GodMother concept, but the reality is that Obama and I are both undamaged.
If anything was needed to convince me that whips and violence are outmoded and unneccessary, that tunnel did it for me.
I have included a video I shot almost immediately after of a nice slow goods train on the same line. Obama was just exiting the tunnel as the train arrived.
A training system that can cope with this sort of event, clearly works.
I am smug, but I have something to be smug about.




To see some of my marginally more organised rants, try these links. If all else fails, try hitting them with whips. It works with horses, doesn't it? http://sites.google.com/site/wehithorsesdontwe/ http://saddlechariot.comlu.com/index.php