Week 1

As noted by our appearance at the POP show, we launched right in to doing the thing our first week together. I also scheduled him for some aquatredding since I had leftover sessions from when Ben went. He was great about it. They asked about sedating him, but given that when he got 0.2cc of dorm for his foot rads for his PPE he was soooooo sleepy he let the cross ties hold him up for a solid thirty minutes, I asked if they could try without. They walked him through a few times and then started the belt moving a bit, then stopped that and added some water. He was such a good dude for the whole thing. 

I've also been letting him ride in the "box stall" version of the trailer like the princess he is 

Heading on in

Good lad! 

On technically day 8 of being his person, we headed to the Local Champions Tour. We signed up for one round at 0.8 and one round at 0.9. I had wised up since my trip with Ben and while I looked at their projected schedule, I decided to arrive at the scheduled end of the 0.8m section. I worked late the night before so wanted every minute of sleep I could get. It worked out and we arrived just as they were finishing the 0.7m. I wandered around, scoping out the course, and BB munched grass. 

While the warm up ring was every bit as chaotic as it was when Ben and I went, I felt more confident and settled on BB. He also is just a doll about traffic and gives no shits about approaching other horses. We focused on going forward in two point after landing and then sitting and rocking that forward power back onto his hocks through the corner and on approach to the fence. It mostly worked well and our 0.8m round was pretty smooth with just one rail when I got... casual to a fence. JT told me to ride him like a big powerful horse not let him slip into a pony feel. 

There were a bunch in the 0.8m class and then a drag break, so he got his bridle off and ate more grass. 

#spoiled

We geared back up for the 0.9m class by popping a sizeable oxer in warm up. It came up perfectly both times, and we headed on in. The round went... Okay. JT said I was riding much better than at the POP show, but I just kept missing. He wasn't bothered by it much but I couldn't see a distance to save my life. The line that went the best was a one stride then a forward six to an oxer. Since I had concrete advice (ride forward on the inside turn) we did the one stride and then did a lovely forward six to the oxer. We ended up with just one rail down, but a ton to smooth out on my part. This is part of the reason why he is living at JT's for this month - plenty of lessons. 

The next day we went for an hour hack with a friend around the back field. The next day we tacked up with that same friend and headed to Sweet Dixie again for some galloping/slogging up hills. It was a bit tricky to find the driest areas because they were not necessarily the higher ground. But we sorted that out mostly. 

All ready to go. So cute. 

We did 20 minutes of trot and then 3x3 minutes canter, incorporating the large hill into each canter set at least once. The two horses made a GREAT pairing. My friend's horse is a TB who can be a bit firey and BB sometimes needs encouragement to keep going up the hill. So they complemented each other quite well and we had a great time getting some fitness work in. 

All in all a delightful first ten days with him. He is such a pleasant dude to do all the things with <3