This was my first time rigging by myself, with my very own first pair of silks, and I did not die. I climbed up on the catwalk above the cow pens the ponies were staying in, balanced myself on the railing and figured out how to safely attach my nylon sling loop to the rusty but very strong metal rafter.

Finehorn seems to find this extremely funny. But the funny thing is, she also seems to be terrified of the silks. We have been experimenting with some basic vaulting routines bareback and that has been going great, but as soon as i was swinging above her and flying at her she wanted nothing to do with it.

So here I am trying to get Finehorn interested in standing still while i decend down onto her back, and the whole time Jesse James is standing there waiting for me to notice him. When I finally got around to trying him out for size he was delighted and really wanted to play….He ground his feet into the dirt and spread his stance and became very serious as if to say “I am a rock, I’m ready for you!”

Since then we have been trying some more complicated manouvers, such as shoulder tumbles and an assortment of things I think are great fun, but today he let me know he was getting bored. He wants to know when I will choreograph his part. I have searched around via the internet trying to find what’s out there in the ways of interactive horses and silks, and aside from someone riding in on a horse and then moving to the silks, or vice versa, theres not a bit of it being done! This makes me excited to push the boundaries on what can be done dancing together. I think we will come up with a really funny burlesque act!