Note's First Ride At Bit of Honey

A few days ago Note and I went for his first ride off the track at Bit of Honey Training, and his first ride since castration surgery.  Note has had some extra time off as let-down from racing because he was a cryptorchid stallion, meaning that only one testicle had descended even at six years old.  Because the retained testicle was so high up in his abdomen, the surgery to geld him was fairly major.  I've given him plenty of extra time off to heal completely, I wanted to be sure that his abdominal muscling as well as external muscling were well healed before I asked for anything athletic. 

We began with lunging.  The photos make him look a little excited, but he was actually quite well behaved on the lunge line even with the dogs cavorting around him.

After lunging I bridled him and we took a few minutes to review mounting block etiquette.

I've worked on this with Note before to acclimate him to the idea of standing quietly for mounting.  When at the track, normally a jockey is tossed aboard the walking or jogging racehorse, so standing motionless is a new idea for Note.  He is a very smart horse, though, and figured out what I wanted quickly.

We started our ride with a well behaved walk, and Note showed me he will turn nicely based off of my weight shifts.

Next was a little trot work, and Note showed off his snappy knees and beautiful natural form. 

As the ride went on, Note reminded me that he was VERY good at his job as a racehorse.  He truly wanted to run, and was feeling fresh.  I stayed aboard, so no harm was done, but there were some exciting shenanigans.  This also gave us some very pretty shots of him in green-horse collected form.  For a horse to do something athletic, be it piaffe or bucking, he has to shift his weight, bring his haunches underneath himself, and lift his back to really do it well.  This made for a tantalizing glimpse into the athletic sport horse that Note will one day become!

When we were done riding I dismounted and took off Note's tack so he could play in the round pen a little to expend his excess energy.  He followed me at liberty like we usually do, and then he began to run!

The sand flying and the dark horse made us all think of the old movie based on one of my favorite books, The Black Stallion by Walter Farley.