Let me show you India's out-of-control mane, which drives my inner hunter rider insane. It's a gorgeous, thick mane and it absolutely refuses to be short or to lay (lie? I"m too lazy to look it up) on one side, so I've been letting it grow out, brushing it regularly, and then refusing to give in to my desire to pull it. It's amazing how much mane this mare grows. Here she is looking at the cosmetology supplies: Show Sheen (in the white bottle), mane & tail brush, and pony tail holder.

India's new look, which I find less distressing, is a fancy braid job. She rubs her mane down towards the withers, so it gets shorter there and I had to tie off the braid at that point and start a second as the mane was too short to pull in successfully. I think next time I'll try and keep the braid higher along her neck and see if I can make it one long braid rather than two. I'm not too adept at this, but I'm sure I'll get better.

She also has a gorgeous tail.

Here she is tied to the arena and of course she's standing downhill, but you can see how beautiful her tail is and how dappled out she is. She's backsliding a bit on trailer loading, I had to have Katie flag her from behind yesterday while I stood in the trailer, and that's discouraging, but the one thing I've learned in all my years with horses is that just about every problem has a solution and that all it takes is time and patience. I have no doubt we'll be back to good loading soon enough. On the positive side is the fact that she did so very well out on her ride yesterday that I was beaming. She got passed by cars and all she did was flick an ear, she gave a good long look to the big, green trash monsters but walked on by, and she walked on nicely, only balking once about going first. We're getting there. We're definitely getting there.