Highboy's First Ride

Today was Highboys' first ride off the track!  He has finally gained enough muscle and strength to be able to carry me, as I'm sure I'm the biggest person to sit on him since flat racing jockeys don't get much over 110 lbs.  We were lucky to have a friend there to record the day and Highboy's antics!

Frolicking on the lunge line #1:  http://youtu.be/oV-uc3VQvGg

Frolicking on the lunge line #2:  http://youtu.be/NI6s8bTKQCc
 

 To start with I lunged him at the walk, trot, and canter and changed directions several times to keep his attention.  We were at the neighbor's arena since she has great sand footing in her arena that drains faster than my place, and there were other horses around, dogs, cattle, tractors, other cars....  lots of distractions for my baby horse.  But after some frolicking and "yeah-hooo!" on the lunge line he was ready to get down to business, sort of. 

When mounting I pause before swinging a leg over so that the horse has a moment to adjust to my weight and see me out of both eyes up above him.

 I started by asking him to walk a bit, which resulted in some backwards walking until he realized he could go forwards.  It was exciting for him to be in a relatively new place and off the line, so the walk was fairly prancy to start. 

Are we sure we have Jockey Club papers, or did I finally get the anglo-arab I've been talking about for so long?

The walk settled down pretty well once I was able to get his attention back on me.  I find with the TBs, and especially the ones who have raced, that they make much more progress in learning by engaging the brain.  This is a little different than some methods, which focus on tiring the horse out by getting him to run or go faster.  Particularly with a horse in the process of building his core strength and coming back from such rough condition it's more important to me that he learn things with his mind, rather than push him hard with his body.  I asked him to bend, turn, stretch, lengthen and shorten his stride.  He figured it out pretty quickly, and by the end of the ride was actually working off of my leg fairly well and looking for contact with the bit!

Testing out his stretch

Much calmer walk!

Trotting was another little adrenaline surge for Highboy, considering how many distractions there were for a baby brain.  His head was high, his steps were small and quick, but eventually he settled into a rhythm and began to relax. 

Once he really engaged his brain and was settling into the work he was pretty tired, mentally.  I've noticed with the hot horses, that when we do exercises that strain the brain they sweat around their ears.  I affectionately call this "brain sweat".  Highboy only had brain sweat today, but he was starting to get fatigued which we could see in his stride length.  We quit while we were ahead, with a nice trotting figure eight, then let him walk for a bit on a loose rein to settle and cool out.  He looked mentally exhausted, but seemed proud of himself for all the praise he earned during his ride!

One last look at the action on the other end of the arena

Conferencing about what a brave, good boy he was.  I'm sure here I was telling him he did it "just right".