VivaCarlos BlogHop

L asks, "What bit do you ride your current beastie in and why?"

The answer to this is simple, since there is only one bit I really ever ride in.

Meet, the SNAFFLE. Sometimes it's a french link, a loose ring, a full-cheek, an eggbutt, whatever, but I've never ridden in anything but a snaffle. Currently, Spartan is happy as a clam in his fattie double-jointed D-ring snaffle. This thing is chunky.

Honestly, my trainers just don't use anything else, so the habit became inculcated in me as well. Occasionally the heavier artillery has been pulled out, but that is definitely the exception. I was even a bit worried initially because Spartan did not have what one could call a naturally soft mouth, but if you rode him now you would never suspect he'd ever been that way. He's learned to be soft and supple so quickly--he's just one of the smartest horses I've ever ridden. I show him something 3 times and he's got it down pat, no problem, filed into perm. memory storage. Which leads me to my next point.

We cantered today. For the first time. In.a.YEAR. And he was FANTASTIC !!

Every ride renews my surprise that this horse remembers everything from such a brief education that hasn't been revisited for a year due to his deluge of health problems. I mean, all he has is his 3yo race training and the one month on top of that I added? Anyways, he cantered right away when I asked despite his preference for being a weee bit of a lazy sloth, picked up the correct leads automatically, stayed totally balanced through the turns, stayed straight on the rail with the right bend, and came right back to me for flawless downward transitions. I wanted to pee myself. Gawd. I literally had to go through months of teary-eyed lessons to get my Training horse to hold her hot mess-self up through a canter circle. I had to work so hard for every little thing, and I never took a single upward step of progress for granted with her. It's just hard to believe after all that that I now have a horse who is the very embodiment of Try, and athletic enough to not need me to hold every inch of him up with my glamorous 4'10 torso. What can I say, I am a happy horse-mom :)

Ohhhh, and guess who caved and bought put in her order for these babies today?

Yep, I caved as per usual. I think Spartacus earned them today though ;)