high as a kite

After a fast 6 miles over rough single track, Major fairly bounced down the road leading home. This after dragging him down the road to start the ride. Sigh.

Once at home he had to wait, and get untacked, then get his boots off, then be hosed off, then wait for me to organize and put things away. Probably for all of 10 minutes. I came out of the tack room to a swirl of dust, since he was prancing in place next to the tree where he was tied. He isn't usually so silly, I think the not-riding-much mixed with cooler-almost-fall-air is the culprit.

I untied him and went to lead him down the the arena. He tried to throw in a head-toss and tiny buck, not happening dude! He got shut down pretty quickly. We led through the gate, turned around to close it, started leading, and more ridiculous behavior started. I am not a fan of holding onto a 900 pound kite on the end of a 9 foot leadrope, so big discussions followed. After a few minutes he was backing away nicely and behaving, so we proceeding to the arena.

I could tell I still had a piece of dynamite next to me, so I backed him up, untied the lead, made him back some more, then gave him the cue to go. And go he did! Some pretty spectacular bucks, snorting, running, looking my direction to see if I was going to do anything. "Go ahead buddy" I told him. He kept going for quite a while, before finding a patch of weeds. I let him eat a minute, then whistled and he came right to me. I put him in his paddock (carefully) and he again had fun running around, and making me and another boarder laugh at him farting and scaring himself.

It is so fun when you see them enjoying themselves. Even after a good ride he was happy. Me too.