Envy

Although this blog so far is mainly about Striker, I thought I would also write about another little Standardbred that i am in the middle of retraining. Envy is a friends horse and as I am only seeing her twice a week at this stage, he progress is likely to be slower than that of Strikers. She is a little black mare, about 15hh and is 8? yrs old. A very sweet and pretty girl but can be a little piggy lol. I first rode her a couple of months ago and she was a very typical ex harness horse. Mouth as hard as they come, they more pressure I put on her mouth, the more she gave back. She was looking for something to lean on. Head and neck stuck out like a giraffe, pulling herself along as best she could. Asked to go forward and she had a habit of grunting her disapproveal and trying to throw in a few bucks. Great! I thought. I didn't ride her again until a couple of weeks ago and her training has now commenced. So far I have had 3 rides and one pessoa session which she took to very well. I am very pleased with Envy so far. She has started to carry more of herself instead of relying on my hands, the bucking in protest has nearly been eliminated, although she still grunts and throws her head to show her dissatifaction lol and she has much more balance and rythem. Yesterday we even had a couple of canters, which were extremely hard to push her into to begin with, but with reward offered as soon as she did, rest, she was soon offering it on the first ask with little resistance. I next see Envy on Friday the 22nd. I am really looking forward to seeing what this little mare has to offer.