Highboy

Highboy is coming along in his riding preparation!  Since I've been hauling over to my neighbor's arena to work horses this week, Highboy has gotten to go on some excellent short field trips.  (When you're in school and they let you out into the field it's a field trip, but if you're a horse and you live in the field is it a school trip?  Nevermind...)

So he has been lunging in the neighbor's arena wearing all his tack.  He has a jumping saddle, his snaffle bit, all his pads and bridle.  The first day he was so excited about the two minute haul to the neighbor's that he could hardly stand still at the horse trailer.  Several hours later after everyone had worked he felt differently and was very quiet.  The second day I lunged him again in all his tack, and then asked him to stand at the mounting block in preparation for mounting.  He remembered the routine from home, and even though the mounting block looked different he stood solid for me to both lean over the saddle and pat the opposite side with my arms, as well as put a foot in the stirrup and stand up, leaning on the saddle.  He looked so well behaved and mellow that my friend meeting me at the neighbor's didn't realize which horse I was working with!

Of course Highboy has been ridden before in his racing life, but I like to restart the OTTBs from the beginning so I don't surprise them with requests they may be unfamiliar with.  Highboy is really ready to start riding in this new way!

Because the trips to the other arena were so mentally wearing for Highboy, he looked just exhausted this morning.  I gave him the day off, and put him out with his friends to play for the afternoon in the arena here.  He and Tao and Garmin trotted around, galloped around, and Highboy even bolted for the end of the arena at top speed, and when he slid to a stop before the fence he literally (not exaggerating) had 10' long slide marks in the footing.  Maybe I have a horse that wants to moonlight as a reiner?  His buddy, Billy, may have told him how much fun it is!

The other highlight of watching him play was seeing his footwork.  He desperately wanted Tao to play with him, lip wrestling, rearing and sparring, anything!  Tao was kind of tired of Highboy's incessant pestering, pinching Tao's haunches in play, and so he started walking in small circles near the jumps and standards so Highboy would have to back off a little.  Unfortunately for Tao, this didn't deter Highboy at all.  He merely jumped the crossrails and piles of poles, nipped Tao again, then spun around and jumped the crossrails the other way.  He went through the grid of four crossrails with four poles in between, he jumped the tires as trail obstacles, then climbed over the bridge, spun around, and hopped it going the other direction.  Poor Tao may not have realized I've been doing the same game with Highboy with the clicker for weeks, trying to get him to pay attention to his feet and shift his weight to do the obstacles with precision quickly.  It absolutely made my day to see Highboy electing to jump the fences and go over the poles all on his own, how cute he is tucking his feet up, and how balanced he was turning and jumping.