Our kids are lucky to have a good few mustering miles under their belts now and so, with Tess home over the Christmas break, it was an ideal opportunity for some rejigging of steeds.

While Eliza has come along in leaps and bounds on dear old Creamy Holly, it was time for her to be promoted to a horse, just as steady, just as quiet but with a little more energy. Fitting the bill was Adelaide’s mount, Patriot.

As we knew it would be, a match made in heaven!

Old Patriot didn’t mind the ‘bum’ trotting nor the intermittent rein control. He was kind of relieved that he could go at a slower pace rather than cantering here there and everywhere as Adelaide was now demanding.

We were fortunate to be able to do all this horse swapping after a recent visit to Aunty Josie’s place. They had a couple of spare horses in their horse paddock that they knew would be well loved here at Mystery Park.

The trial on Boxing Day went well ….

Moonshine proved to be very child friendly.

He’s now right at home in Adelaide’s string.

 Hamish has also laid claim to him and has come to a mutual agreement with Adelaide that they horse swap regularly.

Adelaide wasn’t perturbed because her riding and confidence has sky rocketed. She has now lay claim to almost the whole horse paddock!

When she bit the bullet and stepped up on Moonshine, she didn’t stop there. Big Ben and my faithful Monty have also found themselves in a pink bridle with Adelaide on board.

Lachlan is negotiating with Andrew, for riding entitlement on Dolce, another new addition from our cousins.

We keep assuring Lachlan that he’ll have much more entitlement once Andrew heads back to boarding school!

In the meantime, Andrew is enjoying a younger horse with lots of cow sense. He’s quite proud to have a little cow horse breeding underneath on his One More Daddy/ Acre’s Destiny mare.

We won’t let Andrew get too comfortable for Tess has plans for him on Clancy.

Andrew has done a lot of mustering on Mojo while Tess has been away. This has helped build a solid and sensible foundation for Mojo as she enters her challenge year.

Tess has now taken Mojo back for some fine tuning on the more technical maneuvers.

Like rollbacks, lead departures, perfect circles, flying changes and sliding stops.

Tess has another couple of prospects a little further down the pipeline with Clancy’s 2 year old sister, Matilda joining the workforce.

Mojo’s sibling, Pandora is also under saddle. Her mustering days will commence over Easter.

Seems the horse paddock is bulging at the seams although when the McArthur team are all mounted, there’s not a lot spare ….

Rob and I often comment that we’re super lucky to have a horse paddock at Mystery Park because, apart from spending time with her beloved siblings and devoted parents, the next biggest drawcard to coming home for Tess is the horses!

As her three weeks away from her ‘real job’ in the big smoke draw to a close, it’s fair to say she did a great job at reorganising the horse paddock.

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