Into The Bridle

I'm finally back from LA (late Tuesday night) and through the Christmas craziness (Wednesday, Thursday, and today- Friday). Phew!

Saw Endeavour in LA ahhhh yesss

These guys at Christmas- Ruby is upset that I made her sit only
to take pictures and not to feed her

On Wednesday the pastures were finally dry enough to let the horses out. My mom and I talked about Rico and agreed that he would go CRAZY if he didn't get ridden. I jumped at the chance to ride him and not feel bad if he was iffy (since doing a short ride with me > galloping around in his pasture).

He was definitely sounder than he has been. We made it most of the way down the road before he got a bit ouchy. Once in the arena, he handled about ten minutes of work before feeling meh. Again he's not LAME, just not quite right.

The whole ride, he was a complete nut.

First, he let me open the big gate (which is normally solar powered but there hasn't been much sun) but he freaked when I was closing it because it was chasing him. For a horse who used to pull a cart that was also probably chasing him, he's kind of dumb. I finally got him settled and the gate closed and I turned down the road to catch up with my dad, who was out on Riot. I picked up my reins and Rico immediately stuck his head on his chest, threw his neck around, and struck out. He then pranced down the driveway until I told him that he had to walk for real.

You can just see the sass in his ears as he went to bite Riot

He was good on the way out, still shaking his neck and wanting to prance, but he never spooked.

But THEN, on the way back Rico saw the dreaded tarp near the second set of neighbor cows (that he had passed earlier...?) and he flipped his shit. He ran backwards snorting, reared, and spun away from the terrifying tarp. After he was done being an ass, he walked right up to it and ignored it.

Back in the arena, I did maybe ten minutes of work. By work I mean I sat on Rico's back while he leaped in the air, doing lead changes, and spooking at things. He did offer up some passage and I made him piaffe too. I did one zig zag (3-6-6-3 since my ring is short) and he was absolutely on point. I also got him to do a couple of half pirouettes that were kind of shit but still! It was fun but I still keep expecting my old horse, which is stupid and I shouldn't hold him anywhere near that standard.

But riding him WAS a good thing, even though I wanted to give him more time off- he walked quietly into pasture and only grazed. Even when Dandy came running at him, bucking and snorting and trying to get him to play, Rico just kept eating. Phew, no future tendon injuries and arguably, his coffins were probably better off playing in the arena than in the mud.

Content to just graze all day

The cutest

Christmas day was too crazy to ride and so was this morning. But this afternoon I was itching to get back on baby horse (who's name is TC btw, well it's not exactly his name but those are his initials and I've been calling him that). I went over to the barn and Ali was no where to be found so I chatted with the barn owner (who also partially owns TC).

Then she said "grab any horse you want if you want to ride!" because my horse withdrawal was probably written all over my face. So I grabbed TC out of his pasture. He actually looked really happy to see me (probably just to get attention). He's such a cuddly horse, he kept wanting to stop and nuzzle me.

Tacking up, the BO and one of the girls were changing the lights. TC was great about all the commotion, he kept his eye on me while I tacked him up and only spooked lightly (stepping away and blowing at me) when I put my saddle on. Ah I love how that saddle fits him.

Big fluffy Friesian mane, look at all the footprints ON THE RAIL

I took him to the ring and longed him first. He was PERFECT on the longe. He didn't pull me around once, he trotted when I asked, cantered when I asked on the correct lead, stopped on a dime. So after about five minutes, I stopped and got on him.

TC was immediately a lot more forward and more steerable than he was the last time I rode him. I asked him to walk more forward and he picked up a big trot so I went with it. Once as he was warmed up, we came back to walk to work on the connection and bending.

He struggled with the connection at first but THEN a miracle occurred and he was then on the bit for the rest of the ride at the walk. Gosh he's so incredibly soft and steady on the bit. I can't stop going on about it. It's this beautiful kind of sensitive but firm connection, not firm like heavy at all, but not so light that you can't hold onto him. Best connection, hands down, I've ever felt on a young horse. Probably on any horse. I'd kill to have that kind of a connection on my future horse.

The only issue he really has is that he does like to get slightly behind the bit at times, but all it takes is kicking him forward to get him to step up into the bridle. I think he's going to have one of the easiest connections to train once as he understands.

This one is way hard to get pictures of

If he had his way, this is what all the pictures
of him would look like

The trot was a different story. First, he was much better about steering, ah it was so nice. But he struggles with going forward AND being on the bit. I worked on the roundness first, since he does go forward easier when he's not staring at everything. He kind of got it, there was this one trot set that was maybe 75% on the bit! But he got tired and it dropped to maybe 30%. When he was round though, same thing as at the walk- super super soft but incredibly steady. SO cool.

I did end up cantering him today. His canter is amazing- super smooth and rather steerable. The left is definitely his easy lead, he picked it up right away. To the right he struggled but I did eventually get it after a couple of failed attempts.

At the end, I worked a bit on his lateral balance- the canter really brought out that he leans on his left shoulder so I wanted to address that right away to start building up his alignment.

Following me rather than posing for a picture

I'm so glad we had a good ride. The last one really made me question how difficult having a horse this young would be and how quickly I'd be able to get him to the fun stages, but today made me feel like he's totally on board with learning new things.


Today Rico got his back shoes pulled. I'm hoping those feet stay okay, my farrier is going to check on them in four weeks (when he gets his front shoes- we're slowly putting him back towards six weeks, he's been on three weeks since March of this year). We're hoping for an eight week trim cycle on his hind and a four week shoe cycle on his front for a while before we bump his front shoes back again. Saving me money and hopefully Rico will stay comfortable enough to trail ride and hang out in pasture.