Hot Stuff!

Oh, Lordy was Speedy feeling his oats this weekend! After a month of rain and mud, things have finally begun to dry out. While I finished my lesson with Sean Cunningham, owner and trainer at STC Dressage, Brooke went to get Speedy. She later remarked that he looked very energetic. Boy, was he!

I had her start out on a circle with the intention of working on transitions and steering on the circle at E/B. For the first lesson Brooke took, it had been too muddy to do much more than walk and trot carefully, The next time she rode, Speedy had been recovering from his abscess so we rode out on the trail. By Saturday, he was about to explode.

Speedy started out quietly enough as Brooke did some simple walk-trot-walk transitions, but I quickly saw that the transitions were doing just what they're intended to do. Speedy's motor was revving. Every time Brooke did a down and up transition, Speedy's up transitions got just a bit more uphill and enthusiastic. I realized that he needed to do something different before he exploded.

I had Brooke move down to the A end of the arena so that Speedy didn't feel so free to move about. With the two corners to support her, Brooke was able to maintain better control. To help diffuse his bursting energy, I had her spiral in and out at the trot. It certainly gave Speedy some focus, but he needed to let off some steam before he blew his top. 

I gave Brooke some tips on how to halt hard if he got too wild and crazy, and I told her not to be afraid to really take hold of him if he got sassy. The little booger did try to bolt a few times, but he wasn't hellbent on fleeing the scene; he just wanted us to know that he could if wanted to. Speedy gave Brooke some of the sassiest canter I've seen him do in a long time. While he lives on nearly an eighth of an acre, it has been, in his opinion at least, too wet to really romp and play in.

I usually keep Speedy's lessons to 30 or 40 minutes, but we ended up working for nearly an hour. He was just so fresh and excited and clearly enjoying himself that we let him canter a bit as he celebrated the spring like day. Fortunately, Brooke is a confident rider who doesn't scare easily. By the time they were done cantering, she was breathing harder than Speedy. Keeping both your own balance and control on a forward thinking horse uses a lot of core muscles that even a triathlete found tiring.

As much as Brooke enjoyed Speedy's theatrics, I think we'll both be glad when he's back to normal this Saturday.