WAAAAHOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Weeell, I had my first lesson with Lindsay today.... It - was - AWESOME. My lesson was at 10 so I left around 8:15, driving our rig all the way to Birchbury. I kind of like driving the rig, dunno why. Anyways, so I got there about 9. It takes a solid 20 minutes to get a horse if they're near the back of the pasture (which they were), so you have to allow for that time. I groomed Grady at Birchbury and then loaded him up. He loads just wonderfully now. Basically I point him at the trailer and he walks right in.

Pferde Farm is about a half mile down and off the road Birchbury is on. I had never been there before (I forgot to go the other day to find it) and I was a little worried that I wasn't finding it. There were lots of houses and drive ways and trees... I could barley see the barn from the road, so I'm glad I found it without having to turn around. It was such a quiet residential street!! Pferde Farm is deffinetly a small barn in a small area, but very, very nice. There are lots of paddocks and the barn is absolutely beautiful. It has about 20 stalls plus a wash rack and tack room. Beautiful stalls and the walls were wood paneled. The farm doesn't have an outdoor arena (Lindsay wishes they did!) and I'm not sure where they'd put one... But the indoor is absolutely beautiful. They had both end doors open and the whole place was flooded with natural light so it kind of felt like riding in a covered outdoor.

The lesson started out with discussing Grady's behavior issues. Then she had us walk for maybe ten minutes while she observed Grady. Then we started to work... And when I say work, I mean it!! We started out trotting on a 20 meter circle and we talked about his neck and where it should be, as well as what to do when he gets distracted and looks to the outside. Grady was tense through his neck and through the lesson she had me ride him much deeper than I normally would. She said that at this point we're more concerned about his attitude than we are about absolute correctness, and that she prefers to ride naughty horses a little deeper. She also said that when he's naughty, it's my job to "cowboy through it even if you have to go ****ape on him. There's nothin' classical about it!!" She also pointed out that he's tense, backed off, and lazy - all things that I've known about, but haven't known not how to fix. His attitude makes those issues hard to fix, but he HAS those issues because of his attitude!! So we worked on getting him forward... And oh...my...gosh... did he ever get forward!! I didn't know Grady was even capable of being that big and powerful. I have never ridden Grady where he felt that amazing. We intermixed trotting and cantering the full arena, transitions on a 20 meter circle, and trotting over ground poles. The lesson was 45 minutes and I'd say we got maybe two 30 second walk breaks. Grady was absolutely drenched; he had sweat running down his legs. BUT HE HAS NEVER, EVER, EVER FELT THAT AMAZING BEFORE!!! He had one moment of naughtiness where he started to run backwards and rear up, but I did what Lindsay said and spun him into a little circle and kicked and smacked with my whip until he went forward again. He never did it again.

I am so pumped I can't even begin to describe how awesome that lesson was. For the first time it felt like Grady was WORKING and working happily. THANK YOU LINDSAY!!!!