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Description
Horse: Vartti
Handler: Ilpo Salomäki
Pack horse training
For the White December and also a practice in pack saddle harness. I tried out a new colouring style, I guess it's airbrushing? The soft look fits with the mood in this.

Hiiestä on hevon synty, vuoresta valio varsan. Kiellän sinun hyppimästä, ai'at uuet rikkomasta.
Horse is born from the ancient forests, foals are made from the hills. So I tell you not to jump, not to break the new gates. The lines are from old Finnish spell-poems that should be told to a horse to remind it where it came from and to prevent it from misbehaving.

October 2015, somewhere near Torronsuo national park, Somero, Southern Finland.
Hiking with a horse was more difficult than it usually was, and it was also way trickier than just walking a horse in the stableyard. Especially if the horse was a stallion and super excited for the trip to the woods, but also super confused about the environment and the pile of bags on his back.
"Come on", Ilpo groaned at least a hundred times when Vartti decided to suddenly stop to stare into the distance, sniff a strange-looking root of a nearby tree or hit the brakes when supposed to cross a deeper-than-the-last-one puddle of mud. He was still getting better in his task as a working horse, and spooked surprisingly little. He was higher than Tauno, even if not exactly as sure-footed as his buddy, and would likely do well in the snow even with a big load of equipment. Vartti was even happy to trot a little every now and then when there was a wider and dryer path and hardly tried to outrun Ilpo at all.

Description
Horse: Vartti
Handler: Ilpo Salomäki
Pack horse training
For the White December and also a practice in pack saddle harness. I tried out a new colouring style, I guess it's airbrushing? The soft look fits with the mood in this.

Hiiestä on hevon synty, vuoresta valio varsan. Kiellän sinun hyppimästä, ai'at uuet rikkomasta.
Horse is born from the ancient forests, foals are made from the hills. So I tell you not to jump, not to break the new gates. The lines are from old Finnish spell-poems that should be told to a horse to remind it where it came from and to prevent it from misbehaving.

October 2015, somewhere near Torronsuo national park, Somero, Southern Finland.
Hiking with a horse was more difficult than it usually was, and it was also way trickier than just walking a horse in the stableyard. Especially if the horse was a stallion and super excited for the trip to the woods, but also super confused about the environment and the pile of bags on his back.
"Come on", Ilpo groaned at least a hundred times when Vartti decided to suddenly stop to stare into the distance, sniff a strange-looking root of a nearby tree or hit the brakes when supposed to cross a deeper-than-the-last-one puddle of mud. He was still getting better in his task as a working horse, and spooked surprisingly little. He was higher than Tauno, even if not exactly as sure-footed as his buddy, and would likely do well in the snow even with a big load of equipment. Vartti was even happy to trot a little every now and then when there was a wider and dryer path and hardly tried to outrun Ilpo at all.