First ride done. He was fab. We went round the block (about 40 mins) with my friend and Monty as babysitters. He got a little bit upset when a motorbike came up behind us way too fast. We could hear it coming and weren’t far round a blind bend so I was a bit worried too but to be fair, as soon as the biker saw us he slowed right down and when Charlie could see what it was he was fine. My friend turned poor Monty into an equine shield and forced the biker past us really slowly. I’ve never seen her so assertive! Other than that, we saw a big van, several wheely bins, a boat on a trailer with a big shiny tarpaulin cover, had a field full of ponies galloping about next to us and the only thing he jumped at were some pigeons flying out of the hedge right next to us, which made me jump too! Archie’s saddle is too wide on him and was wobbling a bit so we’re only going to do some very gently hacking until the saddler comes out in a fortnight but I was already trusting him by the time we got back. He’s got one hell of a walk, poor old Monty could hardly keep up and he was more than happy to take the lead despite not knowing where the hell he was and having a bit of a nervous nelly on him!