Downhill

When I think back to last fall and how often I had to grab the neck strap, it puts into perspective for me how far Mo really has come. I can ride him without worrying most of the time, and he's proven over and over how great he can be with things a lot of horses find challenging. We've had some really great outings at horse shows. He's jumping great. Even the dressage has come along, especially when I can get his motor running--which I think will be easier when it cools off.

Part of the reason he's gotten more rideable is simply because he's more broke. We're also feeding him a lot less and he's still a giant marshmallow, but when he arrived he was on the skinny side. M and I both hate skinny horses. So that had to get fixed! But I think the feed wound him up, so now that we've cut the ration back significantly and he's holding his weight, we've got a calmer horse on our hands. Maybe too calm.

Too scrawny

However, there's one demon we haven't successfully killed, and that's Mo's issue with going down the hill to the meadow. On Tuesday, after I'd spent an entire night throwing up because I'd accidentally ingested gluten (I have celiac disease), M announced that she was taking one of her horses down the hill to walk a lap around the meadow, then trot a lap, then walk another lap, then back up the hill and home. Since I was already queasy, I was like, sure why not.

Mo fussed a little bit going down the hill, but nothing as bad as he's done in the past. He whined quite a bit about this one deer fly that wouldn't leave him alone, and about the flowers touching his tummy, about whatever. After we got the first walk lap done, M had me pull ahead. She was on a fat warmblood who doesn't care where he is in the pack, and she thought my thoroughbred would rather be in the front. But I guess we forgot that this was Mo.

Naps 4 Lyfe

He just looked over his shoulder for the other horse the whole time we were in front so M pulled up beside us. I got excited that he would find his thoroughbred motor and try to race the other horse. Heeeeee diiiiiiiid noooooot. He was more than happy to watch P disappear off into the distance. M had us get back in front again and at one point he threw a tiny fit and bucked but he was pretty good after that. We had a good giggle about his whiny attitude.

Mo? Whine? NEVER

The rest of the ride was fine, but I really do want him to go down the hill a lot and get over his crap. I'm hoping that when it cools off and the bugs go away we'll be able to have a better time. Not much is getting his motor running these days, but we have a jump lesson coming up that, I hope, will help. If nothing else, I'll just teach my intro event horse to gallop.