More learning what it’s like to have a young horse

I’ll preface this post with the fact that last Sunday night when I’d gotten home from my trip I’d unloaded the camper, gotten laundry started and was finally ready to settle down onto the sofa to relax for a couple hours when, as I sat down, my back went “pop!” and I knew I was in for a “bit” of pain for at least a week.

Thus it was a week later and I really wanted to get on my horse, but knowing my back wasn’t 100% (ok  - it wasn’t even 50%) I chose to watch Todd and learn some more.

Todd lunged Blu.  Remember last Sunday and my “fish on!” comment?  This Sunday was even crazier!  Blu had 3 days with no chance to get out and run around.  So when Todd had him at the end of the lunge line he went all out!  Check out these photos.

Heck, even the video is crazy fast – but somehow when I watch it now it just doesn’t seem as fast as it was in real life.

Once he’d gotten the kinks out I brought him back up to the barn and saddled him while Sharon had a lesson.  I wish I’d gotten to watch her lesson more because she and Nazz are just amazing and it is so TOTALLY cool to watch them and hope that someday I might get close to how they’re doing. 

When their lesson was done I brought Blu back down to the arena and Todd got on.  Already, only one week later, there was a huge difference!

Blu didn’t get all “humpy” this time.  Yeah!  Todd was able to walk, trot and canter him.  He worked on getting him to take the right lead in the canter.  And he talked me through what he was doing.  I was thrilled when I’d be able to spot what Todd was asking Blu to do.  I could determine when he was trying to keep him going, or when he was holding him back to keep him from going too fast.

I wasn’t able to see much difference in his speed, but it’s only been two weeks, and I'm learning what to recognize.  As it was, I was happy that I could recognize what Todd was doing (most of the time).

I don’t really know how long Todd spent on Blue since time flies when you’re having fun.  But I feel like I could see what Todd was doing, and I looked forward to when I could get on Blu myself.  But since my back wasn’t 100%, and the wind and weather weren’t ideal, and there was no reason to rush things, I didn’t want to blow the weeks Todd had put in by getting on Blu too soon and taking the chance on not handling something perfectly.

So I contented myself watching Todd and learning.

Next week I’d get on.  Come hell or high water!