Getting Reacquainted With Oliver

Oliver is a Thoroughbred x APHA gelding. I rode him today for the first time in... years? I don't even remember! I can't recall if I have ever ridden him at my new place so the last time may have been when we were still at Elk Ridge. I stopped riding him because he was going pretty well for S and for some reason he and I weren't getting along anyway. Really I get along with most horses, but he and I were clashing and we'd end up getting into arguments.

I decided to start riding him again because he isn't getting out enough. He isn't allowed to go outside in winter mud because of his ringbone so when S comes to ride him she has to lunge and lunge and lunge. He bucks and gallops which of course aggravates the ringbone anyway and then he gets sore. More frequent easy workouts should help both his soundness and his mood.

After I had already decided to start riding him I also came to the decision that I ought to be riding all the horses in the barn anyway. I don't see ever requiring all the students' horses to be in full training like at the big show barns -- I like working with the girls and letting them play a big part in their own green horses' training. They ride with me because they (or their parents) like the more relaxed atmosphere and I think they understand that being their horses' primary riders means that they will progress more slowly than if they were in full training. However, I can feel things from a horse's back that I can't always see from the ground, and I think it's important for me to be on them at least occasionally.

Oliver was really quite good today. He was sound and lazy. All I really did was ask him to go long and low (he prefers to stick his head in the air) and then we trotted and trotted and trotted, doing circles and lots of changes of directions and asking him to bend. It was a nice, easy start to riding him again and he got only mildly annoyed at me.

The photo I'm posting today is one of my favorites of Oliver. He tends to be very dramatic about jumping anything new, and this was the first time he saw the miniature bank jump I built last year. In fact, a friend of mine photoshopped something rather more impressive for him to be jumping, so I think I'll post that, too.