Throwback Thursday- Must Love Dogs

 I miss writing about Rico on the blog. I feel like my memories of him and our time together are fading, which isn't true, but sometimes I feel so wrapped up in work, my commute, and TC that I just don't have any mental space for him. So I wanted to write some short little stories about him and share pictures that everyone has seen before.

I had Rico at the barn I worked at for a summer before he got hurt
and had to go off to rehab for his suspensory which eventually turned
into his DDFT problem that he needed surgery on. We did a lot of beach
conditioning so the dressage horse was invited. It was... kind of scary. Rico
hates waves and was very spooky. But he's the best horse so once he chilled
out then it was fun!

I used to ride Rico in the dark all the time. Bareback, apparently.
He was boarded at my parents' barn because I couldn't afford anyplace
else, and so I had to manage the arena completely- redoing the footing
when it would get hard or uneven, dragging, watering, etc. This meant
that I had less time to ride, so my rides got pushed into the dark. No
lights, so most of the time we rode by moonlight. 

Rico LOVES dogs, and Cooper loves any attention
he can get. Rico is always trying to cuddle with the
dogs at the ranch. TC also loves animals and cuddles
with the cats at his barn. I love these cuddly horses!

Second level was a really hard level for us, made harder by my
stupidity where I decided not to use spurs at this show. We still
scored okay, but it was definitely the beginning of the end in terms
of my training situation. After this show I took some time off of
dressage with Rico. 

I taught Rico to piaffe myself right in front of the barn. It took a
long time, but he was such a freakishly willing horse. He was the
first one I put piaffe on and I think I did an okay job with it. He
eventually learned to sit and we earned 7s on the piaffe at GP in
our last test. 

In October 2012, I showed Rico for the first time in three years,
for the first time since his "career ending" injury. It was a terrible
test, I was putting myself through school and saving for grad school
so I didn't take any lessons coming up to it. But I was so proud of my
62% at Fourth 1. And then I started riding with Tracey and raised my
scores into the mid 60s at Fourth and Prix St George. Yeah. Training
is a good thing! You can see how on the forehand he is (look at how
much his right front is under his body).

Obviously gotta add a picture from our first Grand Prix test. I
can't believe he did this for me, I really hope he's enjoying his
retirement because he deserves it!