The ponies being the colour they are, they very rarely get bathed.  Even when we go to a show, a proper bath isn’t strictly necessary to get them properly clean and, of course, this year we haven’t  even had shows to clean for.

Even so, I do like to bath them sometimes – Galahad can get quite dandruffy and Cookster’s mane gets very greasy over time. Obviously I don’t want to overdo the bathing – they do live out after all – but I have been meaning to bath them for a long time.  Sadly, when I’ve had time to spare the weather tends to be cold and windy – the hot, sunny days are all very busy!

Today though, the ponies had got very hot and sweaty on a long hack so they needed washing down anyway and I took the opportunity to give Galahad a proper bath (my sister was in charge of Cookster).  It felt amazingly good to be doing it (nostalgic too – it took me right back to my childhood) and it certainly made Galahad look very sleek and shiny.

He was very well behaved too.  The last time I bathed him I had a terrible job rinsing out the bubbles – he wouldn’t let me near him with a hosepipe and a bucket of water was even worse.  This time he thought about panicking but actually just stood still and even relaxed reasonably well.

Bathing is tiring work!

Naturally neither pony stayed clean for long but I was very pleased to have finally got round to it and it was a lovely way to spend the morning.