.....then I spoilt it!

Sadly, all things must come to an end and I decided it was time that I put my lovely boy to work. I read countless books on re-training racehorses and bringing horses back into work and was enthusiastic to the point of fanaticism. Blue wasn't quite so keen. To my utter surprise he was positively lazy! I look back on this time, and am now aware of 2 things. Firstly, he was trying to lull me into a false sense of security. Secondly, he was more than likely shattered from the constant pacing. Anyway, we set off on our merry way towards the end goal of riding my steed, with plenty of groundwork and preparatory education on both our parts. He was fairly malleable and considering I was working him in an open field admittedly quite well behaved. After around 4-5 weeks of skittering around each other, Blue got disgustingly bored with being lunged and started misbehaving so I figured (why?!) it was probably time I rode him. I was ridiculously gung-ho about the whole matter, and saddled him up on my own with no assistance or mobile phone to hand. Another episode to look back on through splayed fingers! Thankfully, and I must give credit where its due for this, he behaved perfectly. He stood like a gentleman and did everything I asked. Cracked it! I naively thought. Again, we continued this new routine for a few more weeks, riding round and round the field which Blue quite enjoyed as he could still sneakily do his night watchman routine and check the perimeter despite my vaguely unwelcome presence. So on we bumbled in a sort-of mutual arrangement that if I didnt mess with him too much, he would to a point do what I asked.