The next day turned out to be wet…very wet. The rain came down in torrents and working the horses was a misery. They all hacked out and that was the end of their day.
At 2pm the following day, Solo and Selena were ready to go for round two at Bruce’s. Solo was a lot less grumpy, still not giving in gracefully as you can see on the video below, but definitely ‘giving in’. He is not a nasty horse, just very clever and very opinionated. The two often go together.
To start with Solo gave all his evasions a half hearted ‘go’ – both on the flat and with his spooking silliness at the jumps. Selena was told to keep him slow, keep him active and keep him well packaged. Solo is not used to either the ‘active’ or the ‘well packaged’….slow he does.
He was not quite as straight and obedient as I would like at the beginning but by the end he was looking like a superstar. In fact, Bruce told Selena that “this horse will do everything your older horse has done for you (Colombo) and then he will do more”. That was very encouraging to hear. We always thought he was going to be Colombo’s successor but it has been hard to keep the faith while he is still misbehaving at age SEVEN!!!! Yes, he is seven this year and we have owned him for half of his life, nearly more than half. He is in his third year under saddle, shows all the talent and promise we ever hoped for and all we have to do is make him listen up
I talked to Selena today and she says that Solo is jumping smoothly and obediently but is still arguing more than she needs, in the dressage ring – I told her to get Bruce’s help once again, just to confirm all the great new purposeful obedience training. Not sure when his first Florida show is, and not sure who is riding him or at what level – when we have confirmed it, I will let you know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLLDRm1XABo
