1 Week with Grayson

So Grayson has been in California for a whole week! (well… a week and one day). He’s everything I remembered he was and is already proving to be a super fun project. He’s definitely one of those “born broke” type horses that really needs to be motivated to get his butt in gear, but once you do get it in gear, he genuinely is a really nice, balanced horse to ride.

On Saturday, I hopped on him for a lesson, and I wasn’t totally sure what to expect. We spent the entire lesson getting him to bend through his body and soften over his top line, and by the end, he was giving me some really nice, soft work at the trot over his back. Of course, Chloe wanted me to also pop him over some fences to see how that went, and we ended up jumping some raised cavalettis a couple of times.

Then, she had me jump a 2’6″ish vertical and loop back to a 2’3″ish oxer. I… could not see a distance to the vertical to save my life. I angled the turn weird and lost my rhythm, but I supported it and was soft and he made it work for me. After that, I got his butt in gear to come around to the oxer. With a better rhythm and more impulsion, he jumped the oxer super great and gave me a nice feeling. Once this guy gets stronger and more supple, he’s going to be a ton of fun to jump around.

Of course, this was magical even if I felt like a fish out of water haha. Then, I found out that I was off on Monday as well, so I added another lesson to the calendar. On Sunday, I immedately felt like I was starting to get some better work out of him (a healthy forward reminder from my dressage whip helped!) I guess my friends thought so too, because one snapped the below video for me!

I was pretty excited to already have some progress to show Chloe on Monday! As expected, that lesson was all about getting Grayson to be more forward thinking, and we started seeing some much better, more engaged work out of him! It was also really helpful because it ended up being a really good time for Chloe to give us some homework as well as lay out how she sees his development going over the next 4 – 6 weeks.

Really the next several weeks are just about putting a really solid fitness foundation on him. Kind of a mix of cardio and pilates hahaha. Lots of lean, supple muscle going on this dude! Up next? I had signed up for the annual Galway Fundraiser clinic with Chloe this weekend, and I decided to take Grayson. He’s not fit, and we haven’t jumped much. However, I wanted to give him an easy outing where we can splash through the water and pop over a log here and there. 1 week in and already in love with this sweet goofy dude!