First Ride

Yesterday marked my first ride with Zim (minus when I tried him). I learned quite a few things, but the biggest one was:

Holy Shit I am out of shape.

I rode for approx. 25 minutes, and felt exhausted. Today, my legs are sore, my butt is sore, and my arms are sore. What the hell I was thinking buying a fit young OTTB, when I am an out of shape rider, is beyond me. Kidding...its not so bad, I just need to get my butt in gear.

Zim is in his new home (a paddock with run-in stall), and seems happy. Though he desperately needs a blanket, as he was covered in mud and disgusting when I found him and pulled him out. We practiced cross-tying while I groomed him (one tie clips, the other looped through his halter) and he was a very good boy. Stood quietly with minimal pawing and head bobbing. He's a bit of an attention hog, and would paw when I went into the tack room, but nothing that won't be fixed by some hours standing.

Zim loves being groomed. More than any TB I have ever worked with. He turns his head to the side and bobs when you rub any of his favorite spots (forehead, throatlatch, chest, haunches). As long as I used a soft curry on him, he will stand quietly to be groomed.

Hurray! My saddle fits him decently. Its not perfect, and when I save up some money I will have him fitted, but its passable, and doesn't pinch anywhere. So while I'm not the owner of the year for riding him in it, its not going to hurt him or cause him pain until I find something else.

Mounting needs a bit of work. Zim doesn't like to be jabbed in the side while mounting, and will sidepass away when this occurs. Gracefully climbing up a 16.2H horse without touching their side however, is a feat I barely mastered. For the first 5 minutes I worked with him on standing quietly, being a bit less sensitive, as well as working on the best way to mount that wouldn't bump his side. We seem to have reached an agreement, but it's something I will need to watch when I mount.

My new boy is a bit of a crooked drunk. He can't walk straight to save his life, and to the right, he drops his shoulder to the outside and throws his haunches in. In turn, this makes my hips split, and I struggle to keep him straight. I kept reminding myself to bring my hips back to center and push his haunches back out to the rail.

On a postive note, he has some of the cleanest gaits to work with. He has so much energy coming up over his back. I can feel the power of him engaging over his back even when I'm not collecting him up at all. He wants to be there, but unless I get him straight and rythmic he just doesn't quite find that happy place.

His trot is going to be his weakest gait. His walk is powerful, he steps from behind and while it will be fun (not) to get him straight, I can see now he will get good marks on his walk. His trot however, is crooked, and a bit out of sorts. We spent most of the ride last night on a loose rein, working on slowing his trot down to find a solid rythm. He tends to fall either fast/tense, or breaks gait to a walk. A gorgeous trot is in there, he just hasn't quite figured out where it is. I'm hoping in the next weeks/months we can get his trot more adjustable and loose.

His canter is by far his best gait. Still crooked, still on the forehand, but he has more energy over his back, and more cadence than any other gait. He needs a LOT of transitions (To the right is still a bit of a trot.trot.trot.trot.catrotcantrotcantetrotcanter) and a lot of 20 meter circles to teach him to relax and bend a bit.

I think he may need his teeth done sooner than 6 months (the vets rec.). He grinds a bit undersaddle and I'd like to have him looked at in the next month or so to see if that might help with his bending/crooked head.

All in all, a good ride. I didn't accomplish much training as it was more of an eval.

On the way back to the pasture we shared an apple. Zim doesn't like to bit his own chunks, so I bit him pieces and shared them with him while he walked. It was pretty cute.