It has been a rough couple of months. First, Dublin developed an abscess in his left front foot that seriously sidelined him for 6 weeks. We did make some progress on general groundwork skills as he needed his foot wrapped in diapers enclosed by duct tape and then booted. A tough challenge for a horse that doesn't like his feet handled! In the middle of that, very unexpectedly, my mother passed away on December 3, and life got turned upside down. None of this makes for good horsemanship. But Dublin has been released from foot abscess prison, and while life will never quite be the same, I am done with the urgent attorney visits, bank stuff, memorial services, etc that follow the death of a loved one, and it is time to get back on that big black horse. And so I did last weekend, and then again this week, and again today. He is such a champ and it is like we never stopped working. We've worked on yielding to leg pressure, straightness, and consistency with complete success. Hopefully the weather will cooperate (well, maybe not, we are in the middle of a serious drought and rain would be welcome!) and we can CANTER!!! Dublin has the most gorgeous canter out in the pasture. He just takes off from a standstill in a rocking-horse canter that you can tell is based from pure joy in being able to move his body. I so want to ride that! And it is so wonderful to see him moving that way after arriving here footsore and defensive. Now, if we could just get him to quit picking on Cowboy. He doesn't leave him along for a minute. Cowboy is amazingly patient, although it may be karma. Cowboy has always been the "brat-boy" here, full of mischief, and he probably recognizes that he is just getting it all paid back to him.
Once Dublin was released from confinement, he and Cowboy did mix it up a bit. Here's a bit of video showing some of their antics:
Dublin and Cowboy
