Boring is good

Well normally boring isn't good, but in this case boring is good.  In fact, boring might even be great!  Why, you might ask, is boring great??  Boring is great because Reily had his first ride off the track today!  And for a 3 year old horse, straight off the track with two weeks of "let down" time (time off from racing or any other work) at the track and a third week of let down at home that is a phenomenal report to give!  It's phenomenal because a "boring" ride means that nothing happened, no crazy bolting, no rearing, no bucking, nothing.



Little anxious to start

 

OTTB's tend to have this awful reputation for being "crazy" or "wild" or even just plain "out of control".  My response... FALSE.  There are some, yes, there will always be those exceptions, but I think if people really look, they'll find that those hard to handle horses are the exception not the rule.  And Reily proved to be just another example today.  He was a gentleman in every way.  Race horses never have to stand and let people climb on them, trainers give jockeys and exercise riders a "leg up" and essentially help the rider jump on their back while on the move, but he stood still and let me mount on the first try.  Most people assume race horses are either in a stall or running flat out as fast as they can, as if there is no middle ground, but they actually get regular exercise almost every day where, just like riding horses they must warm up.  This warm up consists of traveling at the walk and trot on the far outside headed clockwise around the race track.  Once they are warmed up they will head towards the middle of the track or the rail and canter, gallop, breeze, etc. in a counter clockwise path.  So yes, race horses think fast and forward, but it's not all that they know, and at first Reily was a bit tight in anticipation of me asking for a gallop, but within five minutes he realized all I wanted to do was walk so that's all he did.  We marched around the field with the other horses in it for about 15 minutes and then called it quits.



Maxin' and relaxin' (Boo is the one watching in the
background, Scotty is the one in the middle and
Napoleon the super pony is on the far right)



He did so well for his first ride and I'm super proud of him.  Some people suggest at least 6 weeks of let down time before riding them, but since we'll only be walking I don't think it'll hurt him to start now.  We'll spend at least the first month just walking and power walking around the property.  Gotta build up those butt muscles and coordination on hills.  He'll be a mountain goat in no time!

A pat for a good baby.  I'm so happy that Reily has a good brain in his head.  The exact opposite of Boo who earned his name for being scared of everything including his own shadow when I first got him.  But Boo still takes a lot of "aluminum courage" aka spur persuasion, from time to time.