Gallop into December

Sometimes things can come full circle.

About 4.5 years ago, I had the major ITCH to start riding again. I started looking at horses to lease and found a great person through Craigslist and we totally bonded. My friend Sam had several horses and she wanted a lessor riding  buddy. We are the same age and it was such a fun fit. From that experience is how I met Laz (when he was dropped off at our farm along with 44 other OTTB's HOT off the track to be sold or sent to slaughter)

I adopted Laz, we moved barns and my friend started her own riding barn about an hour away.

We have always stayed in touch and finally had set a date to meet up and ride.

She trailer-ed her 17.2 WB Seeley, and had a friend and her paint pony join in.

4 years later and we ride again

I had rode Laz for a good 35 minutes to warm him up. He's been WIRED lately with loads of TB energy and just keeps testing me with naughty "IMZ SOOO EXCITEDZZZ" squeals and shoulder pops/neck snaking. So much so, that I need to re-align his bitless to make sure we are still 'connected' lol

Off to the trails

 Sweaty boy. 

Laz did quite well being he's never ridden with these two horses OR MET even except for our way to the trail.  He was a bit more drama llama but still lead the majority of the way, but with much more Arab action (snorty, arched neck, prancy moves)

 Ex-Eventer Seeley loooves to RUN and Laz quickly picked up on this and race time was 'game on.'

Not what I wanted or intended. There are parts of the trail where it's fun to canter, but Laz would racehorse LEAPT into a flat gallop the second he saw Seeley getting ready, and I had to use everything to re balance him and bring him down a bit. He was in racer mode which was fine, but he was listening more to Seeley than me at that point, which was not OK.

 Towards the end, as dusk was approaching and I had a pretty wet horse, I had to remind the group "UH, we need to cool these crazy monkies OUT and Laz needs a mental stop on the racing" 

I'm not into having a wet horse at the end of a ride...or having a crazy amped horse during the trail who now wanted to RUN everything.

This little pony was super chill the whole time, lol

 My friend had brought dinner, loads of delic appetizers; hummus  tabbouli  grape leaves, home made fallefal, etc. I brought a bottle of  South African Foodbarn Rose. YUM

 And our ride below;

Not a bad way to welcome in the winter that is soon to approach

Now, I have some training thinking to do, of how to keep Laz interested in trail riding while maintaining his manners and remaining with me as a partner...stay tuned