The Right Cards

A general recap of the past few months is in order here.

My trainer does mostly private lessons, and the school horses include some of her own along with some that are boarded. Sometime right at the start of the summer, one of her backup school horses left to join his owner out of state. Then her barrel mare got a suspensory injury. And then days before losing Lucie, Molly's owner decided to send her back to the rescue. That left one horse for lessons, which obviously was not sustainable.

I literally cannot believe this beast packed around 5 year olds

When Lucie was still actively for sale, I was offered to ride my trainer's old horse, Blackjack, if Lucie ever sold. He was a lesson horse at some point, but he lived with my trainer's mom and was her part-time trail horse. One thing led to another, and he basically ended up sitting in a field, getting fat for a good while. With many sudden changes in the schoolie line up, it was a no brainer to bring him back into work.

I hemmed and hawed before paying for a lease this month. It made me feel awful to think I was disrespecting Lucie in some way, but, again, I'm not interested in getting attached. I have no desire for that type of commitment. Blackjack is cute, and I am extremely grateful, but I fell in love with Lucie from the beginning, and nothing can challenge that. If that makes me a bad horse person, then so be it.

I had a trial lesson with him this past weekend. Trainer G hasn't had many people on him because he's . . . very fat and out of shape lol. Lucie was out of shape when I first met her, but she wasn't sitting in a field for an extended period of time out of shape. He's also just a naturally hefty horse with a very cute, very big head.

I didn't have to change much while riding him versus Lucie. He likes soft contact and a balanced seat. I can give at least one of those. The other will need some work. You can guess which is which. He goes in a two ring elevator on the bottom hole, so I was even more aggressive about not touching his face too much. I'm honestly not a fan of hacking in leverage bits (or martingales) unless you're on a horse that's genuinely a handful, so this will take some getting used to. He fully remembers his training and was happy to move into my hand after a good warm-up.

Moving forward with him is going to require a lot more work out of the saddle. Cantering him to the right was actually painful. I genuinely could not hold myself together during the transition. He's also stiff to the right, and we nearly fought over bending. In addition to fixing myself, Trainer G has advised me to spend a little more time going to the right just to build his strength. I'm also going to be more diligent about incorporating stretching, especially carrot stretches.

The thing I'm feeling the most bothered about is my saddle. Yeah, we're on this again. I knew just looking at the curvature of his spine that my saddle was not going to be a great fit. I haven't checked the shoulder clearance, but the cantle sits loooowww. That flat ass flocking was great when I was riding Thoroughbreds and warmbloods (and even one draft horse). Not so much a cow bred Paint. There's one saddle at the barn that I can try out. Besides that, I'm still in the market for a good breastplate and breathable exercise boots.

Look how cute he is. He deserves them.