A cat and a riding lesson

Quickly after finishing my first homemade doll, Juoru the black farm cat, I already photographed him in things we can easily see happeing in this country. He's a horse enthusiast, but he has no much experience and he needs to learn a lot, so what else he could do if not to go for a riding lesson?

In Finland, many people who have no horses but like them, ride in riding schools to learn everything possible and keep their skills up.

It's common.

My photos are horrific, but I took them for fun, not for artistic skill; I had the background cloth too small yet, although right now (when I publish this) it is already large enough. I have edited some photos to look better, but don't claim them to be perfect neither. I personally am ever pleased with my photos, especially now when I have no feelings to invest to (what comes to visual quality) my photography.

(Here starts the stoooooory:)

Because Asko gave a private riding lesson for the kitten, and he wants him to learn not only to ride well but also to handle horses rightly, he asked him to walk C to the pen. With bridles already on. Asko does not own any saddles yet, and he knows that without one is OK to ride too (although saddles are of course nice to have sometimes), so Juoru rides bareback. But hey, he's a cat, cats have excellent balance naturally and they are good at staying on large prey animals! Well, that's absurd; teaching a cat to ride a horse is almost forcing your horse to be OK with a beast around. (In fact same happens with people, we are beast species as well as cats.)

But this cat is not dangerous for horses, as domestic cats normally are not, simply because of their size (laugh). Now stop joking.

What about million of photos showing one and same moment?

Juoru needed no much instruction about how to hop to the back, but I think Asko helped him still to make sure the horse doesn't wonder too much. Cats have sharp nails, who stick out if the animal feels that a paw loses hold! And I haven't yet made any boots (they need to be removable, because of my perfectionism) for him.

You see, he holds reins quite badly. Juoru is a cat, but it doesn't mean he could automatically trust his own balance or the horse, so he tries to make sure he stays on with reins.

C still clearly doesn't mind although his mouth gets pulled, maybe he knows that the cat is just learning. (Horses really know.)

This photo looks less stupid in my opinion, when thinking the realism.

After watching few minutes of Juoru's riding, Asko decided to start pointing. For first he explains how reins should be held, and commands Juoru to loose them a lot. It's not good to have continuous pressure to anyone's mouth, no matter if the mouth is attached to a 50 kg heavy head and the rider is just a bit heavier...

Asko tells about reins.

My shelf is not large enough for good photo stories, and I don't feel good to take a huge army of photos with same theme in them, so let's see what happened at the end of Juoru's riding lesson. He learned the basics of good riding, so now he knows them, but his body needs all practice from this time still. Another trick is to teach him off from grabbing the horse's sides with his nails if he loses balance, it HURTS... But what else you imagine a cat doing? Everyone who had tried to hold a scared (or angry) cat knows how horrific it feels to get sharp nails through skin.

A riding lesson ends always to free loose-rein walk, and after that you thank the horse from the ride, pat it or whatever you do to tell it did a good job.

Pat pat.

At this time Asko yet explains things and tells why they are as they are, etc.

Loose reins are OK, but not TOO loose...

Then he should dismount from horseback. To make it safe, the dumbo guy decides to hold his horse while Juoru climbs down. Boys also discuss something, seemingly Juoru (luckily) got it just as it should when Asko commanded a lot at the start of the lesson. The cat is OK with that.

Whispering for a horse.

And when the cat is safely on the ground - of course he landed to his paws only - what else could a thankful rider do if not to give some sugar to the horse? While that he also grabbed his shoulder bag from the pen's gate... I guess he kept there the sugars. 

That horse wants to eat the camera more than sugar...

End of the story. I hope I can write a better one later, and show better pics too. These are so horrific that uhhuh, could they be even worse?


Artistic info:
Those sugar cubes are just suede/fake leather lace pieces! That's why they also are not really cubes, but what I think, not real sugar cuber are neither?

The tack seen there is older and worse in quality, lazily made, but they work. Material is some kind of suede/fake leather lace (same as the sugar cubes). The red thread keeps bits "in the mouth", but yea, it should be black... I must change it later. Those black reins seen in there are also really, really old, and stored badly, that's why they look stupid and don't lie down nicely.In some of the pics it can look better still, because, really a moving horse makes also reins wave. And I love illusions in miniatures.

I personally feel no good to see my homemade dolls with visible arms and legs, but that's something I can do nothing yet. I have no skill with doll cloth making. And with Juoru I didn't even try to sculpt him well enough, as he really was a test doll only. Then we suffer from lack of quality due to that.  Also the usef fabrics were a problem; I can't sew, but I can glue. I don't own any good fabrics to make fluffy animal dolls, so I used something I only had close enough. The future cat dolls need to get fluffy tails, to hide glue seams!

But I tried my best to make him look like a cat.

I'm not yet sure should I rename my Breyer traditionals or keep the real names for them... Just feels stupid to call them by real horses, but at the same time I don't feel right to create new personality for those. But when I create a personality for a model horse, it comes from feeling and what the model is for me... Not from who is shown in the portrait.  

And this post seems to be my first published photo story in 1:9 scale. Takin stories in shape of photos is nothing new to me, but making a blogtext with them is another job to learn...