After almost 6 months I'm finally back in the saddle and utterly happy about it. :)
It's been a really long time and while I did get to ride other horses, it's never been the real deal. Regular training, proper work-outs, weekly lessons, making progress, achieving goals, working as a team, a pleasant feeling of exhaustion and accomplishment. You can only go there with your own horse, or a horse you get to ride nearly every day.
I've missed this. And I'm so glad to be back in the game. It feels great.
Caven is not quite there yet, as he's still lacking some stamina that we need to work on building back up, and he also still gets easily excited about and distracted by everything around him. It's fine, though. He's a really young horse and he needs proper training and routine, and we're patiently gonna work on that. :)
Just earlier today, I rode him in the arena and Enjoy (the mare he's in love with) was there, too. He could not concentrate around her. At all. He literally ogled her the whole fucking time and when she left I actually had to keep him from running after her! But it didn't stop there. Outside the arena Enjoy was still in Caven's sight and every time he passed the gates he could see her through, he would peer hard at her and almost stumble over his own fucking feet doing so. Zero concentration around the ladies, that guy.
Apart from that Caven also managed to break free like three times in these four weeks, destroying one halter and one rope in the process. Each time something mundane, like his own stupidity, had startled him into a fit of panic during which he tore free from whatever bound him. It's really silly, because two out of three times he got free, he didn't even run. He just stayed exactly where he was, completely dumbfounded by his own actions...
Last time he broke free he got scared because his rug loosened and he almost tripped over it. He ran. Back into his stall. On the bright side, it shows that he knows exactly where he belongs and that he feels safe and secure in his home. That makes me happy. :)
I do hope that we will have less incidents in the future, but I guess with such a young horse you need to be prepared for anything. All things considered though, he is doing great and trying his very best at everything we ask him to do. He's an adorable little brat.
The adorable little brat values his freedom. So he gets plenty.