My Fabulous Guy

Today I'm going to digress from the three lovelies (hmmm, perhaps Luigi would not enjoy that title) and turn to Natural, the other equine in my life.  He's a 26 year old Standardbred, who's been with me for 20 years. Next to Rick (husband) and Dudley (black lab featured in previous posts), he's my main squeeze.

I don't ride anymore after a pretty bad fall six years ago, but do work him in the outside arena, about 80x120 Today he was a marvelous gem.

I took my lunge line and whip with me out to the arena and coaxed him in with some carrots.  But once in, he was not in the mood to be haltered.  Finally I quit chasing him and told him, "Fine, then you're going to run" and cracked the whip.  Lo and behold the boy started lungeing around this large area, just as if he was attached to a line.  I'll admit I had a much harder workout trying to keep up with him, but he went through all of his paces through voice commands - walk, trot, canter, ho.  My equine friends will know this is not out of the ordinary in a round pen, but not in a space this large.

I was beaming!