Cob Jockey

One of my favorite things about the Welsh Cob breed is their cheeky sense of humor - which admittedly, isn't right for everyone (though I would argue that it's right for most people!)  “You have to have a sense of humor to train a Welsh Cob, they don’t take life too seriously,” Dr. Marks told me as she was trying to convince me to take Training and Handling II and saddle break her young Welsh Cob, Castleberry’s Protégé.  “You have the right personality.”  That’s the story of how Welsh Cobs chose me.

Though Connor is maturing, the cheeky cobbiness that I love so much is still alive and well, as he’s shown several times this summer:

Click to enlarge. Squiggly line denotes where Connor "escapes" to.

Story 1:
Connor lives in the former stud paddock, a near-drylot with wooden 4 board fence, a gap (large in some areas, small in others), and then an inner 3 strand rope electric fence.  I came out to find him grazing in between the two fences and when I asked, I found out that he had figured out that the electricity was down on one side of the fence and, uh, exploited that to get to the green grass on the other side. Several times they put him back, then found him on the other side of the fence again an hour later, so they finally just left him to “mow the lawn” until the broken part could be replaced.  (He’s in no danger of escaping or hurting himself.)  Bonus: He's super easy to catch while out there.

Story 2:
He bolted from his pasture when the 3 strand electric rope gate was open because his buddy ambled out of instead of into the pasture during turnout.  While his buddy meekly allowed himself to be caught, Connor gleefully ran up and down the lane past all the pastures for twenty minutes before they could catch him.

Story 3:
Connor’s buddy’s fly mask has not stayed on for more than a day at a time all summer.  Nobody knows exactly how it’s coming off, but as I told my trainer, “Doesn’t it seem like something Connor would find fun?”  At least he’s polite about it and takes it off gently and in one piece!

Shae and I on graduation day

Those stories drew up memories for me of Shae, Castleberry's Protege, who once picked up the garden hose Dr. Marks was using to fill her trough and chased her with it, shaking water at her as he went.  He also upended a feed pan with a giant salt block in it, picked it up, carried it about 200ft across his pasture at the College, and dropped it in his stock tank.  Funny how so many funny Cob stories are about water...

"...what?"