When Presto heard about the Willow Tree Warmblood babies getting their own “lake”, he was a little jealous. I’m pretty sure there was some grumbling about how back in his day they didn’t have so many luxuries and kids these days are spoiled. While I can’t go dig him a water feature in his pasture, I can do the next best thing and buy him a pool. (Ok all of this is a massive lie, I saw a video on facebook of a horse rolling in a little inflatable pool and found it both hilarious and very Presto-like, so I bought him a pool from Amazon with a gift card I got for my birthday. Whatever. Totally similar story.)

I got the pool last week, inflated one of the sections, and asked Presto for his opinion.

Not particularly impressed.

He also got a new ball, so I decided to debut them properly on the same day. If you’re gonna have a pool, you really need pool toys right? So on Saturday I dragged the pool into their pasture, put a few inches of water in it, and tossed in the ball. And while he never did roll in the pool, I wasn’t disappointed in the level of entertainment.

Granted, I think he wasn’t as into the pool until I added the ball. It has definitely remained his favorite toy. Once he was done splashing and biting at the pool, he took off with the ball and chased it around for a while.

And while Presto was distracted with the ball, JB dealt a few death blows to the pool. Presto had already put a few small tears in the bottom with his feet, but JB ripped a big chunk out of the side with his teeth, and then proceeded to tromple over it’s muddy corpse.

I’m totally ok with that. I bought the pool knowing it was probably only a one-time toy, and it’s good to see sometimes-timid JB come out of his shell and be brave about playing with scary things. The pool served it’s purpose. Plus I decided I’m going to cut out the bottom and use it to make a liverpool, so it won’t go to waste.

I am a little less pleased about the fate of the brand new ball though. I came out the next day to find a body slung over the fence into Henry’s pasture.

Didn’t even make it 24 hours, that one. In it’s defense, both of the babies were playing with it pretty hard on Saturday. It got chased, bitten, and kicked up one side of the pasture and down the other by both of them. It’s hard to say who dealt the final death blow and how it happened, but this ball definitely had a rough go of it. Luckily I already had another one waiting in the wings, so they won’t have to go without for very long. They could be a bit less murderous of things though… hard knock pasture life.

Still waiting on that giant rubber chicken to arrive. Maybe that will survive longer than a day? Yeah probably not.