What a Pleasure

Cool Evening

I mowed the lawn early today. In the process I found several little stands of poison ivy.

So, after lunch I went to Home Depot to get some brush killer to get rid of the stuff. I dropped by the pizza place and got a small antipasto for dinner. By then it was mid afternoon and quite warm. I decided to wait a bit to ride the Boys. So I fed them.

That's when a thunderstorm came by. Fortunately it wasn't a bad one, but the rain threw me off schedule.

I ended up watching the end of the US Open golf tournament, eating my dinner, and then I went out to ride.

It was lovely and cool, though a little damp.

Tucker was great. He was very steady to the bit, so that head tossing thing was just a one time phenomenon. The only complaint I have is that I had to really keep after him to get him energized. He would trot and canter just fine, but trying to get him really forward took some effort. I hadn't put on my spurs, so that was my fault. Otherwise he was a really good ride. I did some of the test movements, all of which he did well. Trot and canter circles, leg yields, shoulder in, canter lengthenings and trot lengthenings all were a cinch.

Then I rode Toby. Since the mosquitoes are so bad in the woods, I schooled him in the ring too, as I am trying to get him fit. After a nice warm up, I rode through one of the first level tests. The heading of this post is for Toby.

Absolutely everything on him is push button. What a pleasure he is to ride. You can get a huge canter lengthening down the long side, then just sit up at the end and he comes right back to a working canter. All you have to do is "think" a ten meter circle or a leg yield and there it is. He is really fun to ride.

If someone needs a good horse to take lessons in with Gabriel, Toby is perfect.

Needless to say, he got a great big carrot at the end of the session.