Pure Pleasure

As Lynn mentioned in her blog post; Eastern Ontario has had some absolutely fantastic weather recently. It's about time too!! As you can see from the pictures, there is still a fair bit of mud around. Linus WAS clean prior to me taking the above picture. Dad passes the chain harrows up and down the laneway with the 4wheeler to keep it smooth and dry and when he does this Linus races all over the place!! I know its not the best picture of Linus, but it really shows his growth and he is gorgeous so it doesn't matter! lol

I ran up and down the fence a bit with Linus bucking and kicking and running around some more. Its a really great way to get the "P & V" out of him before I work with him. I took him out when he had settled and tied him to the stock trailer to groom him. He was much more settled than I thought he was going to be. He danced a little bit when I put the harness on his back but was quick to settle and have it adjusted. It has been too long since I have ground-driven him up the road, so to be fair to the both of us I decided to not keep my expectations too high and be prepared to offer lots of reminders. The clucking and whoaing that I use when teaching to lunge and when we go for walks is really paying off and his response times are getting so fast. We first went up the road to the near corner and then had a really good turn around. He wasn't too keen on heading back towards home already but the side road is freshly graveled (more like small rocks!) and its hard for both of us to walk on. So, whenever I needed to I lead him and whenever he was ready to I drove him. There is a new family on the road and new dogs too. So there were a few new things for him to see but he handled it all really well. I find him lately to be in a very vulnerable stage. Like he is always asking me if he is doing the right thing. I can see it coming and try to reassure him before his pace slows or he thinks about shying. It really seems to help keep him confident. SO important in a young horse. We were met and passed by trucks pulling trailers to the dump, a very old and noisy tractor and a first was a car with quite loud music sporting hockey flags from the rear passenger windows. I don't think Linus even noticed them!!

We had an extremely pleasurable outing on an incredibly nice day. Lets hope the weather hold and we can keep getting out there!!