Richie

11. February 2007

At the moment I seem to be on top of the situation. Well most of the time anyway.

My tactic of working little Richie into the ground every day of the week seems to be working well so far. The only problem at the minute is that the jump saddle is causing –well how shall I put it – slight discomfort to my backend. Anyone who has spent a considerable amount of time in a Stubben will know what I am talking about. They are hardly built to be comfortable.

But apart from that things are going quite well. Well until people do stupid things like turning off the lights in the indoor just as I am about to enter that is. Then things still go a bit wild. Now this might not sound like a big drama at all but the only problem is that when they have just been turned of it takes about 10 minutes before they come on again. And that is a long time when you are holding onto half a ton of hyper active flesh that is throwing itself in all directions in the dark. Au! Now you could argue that it was my fault too for being on the phone at the time but I choose to rule that out as a decisive factor. And anyway the conversation did not last for very long. My friend just said “By the sounds of that Hilly, I will call you later,” and hung up on me. This was probably a good decision as I had just been head butted by dear Richie.

But on the whole we have come a long way in the last weeks really. In fact we have overcome quite a few obstacles since Richie arrived at the yard just over a month ago. Like him being in an indoor school for the first time ever. At first he was fine but then he pretty much had the shock of his life when he saw himself in the mirrors for the first time. Now I assume this was because the reflection was moving due to him freaking out and not because he suddenly realized he is not the 17.2 hh stallion he thinks he is most of the time.

We have also almost got used to walking from the stables to the indoor in the dark without causing too much damage, he has stopped freaking out every time he is left alone in the building and we have agreed that I am the one generally in charge of what direction we are going in.

In fact I have even started jumping him, which has been surprisingly successful. We have not attempted anything even remotely big yet but on the whole it is not bad going by an ageing dressage rider with bad knees. And the main thing is we both really enjoy it. And besides I have always ridden better when I am slightly worried about my safety. Makes me sit up and kick on. In these situations I still hear James’ words in the back of my head “Now ride like you have already fallen off!” That always helps.

The other day Richie was so well behaved I actually considered giving him a day off in the nearest future. It was particularly cold and as I got on I pleaded him to be good so that we could get it over and done with and return to the bliss of the 3 degrees above freezing currently in his stable as soon as possible. Now I don’t know whether he actually listened to this or if his good behaviour was because he actually remembered the moves I had performed when he was being terribly misbehaved the day before. Anyway I fear Richie might just be behaving himself to give me a false sense of security and wait for me to let my guard down before he lets rip again. But then again that could be me overrating his ability to reason slightly…

But with the riding pretty much on track I worry about everything else instead. Like is he eating enough, should I bandage him at night just in case and the never ending how many rugs in this temperature scenario. Well I have to admit that it has been suggested in the past that I need to get a life (= man) to make me stop being so paranoid about these things, but I doubt it would help very much. In fact I am sure it wouldn’t because in the last week I have actually been accused of being in love without it stopping me from worrying about whether Richie’s duvet is keeping him warm enough at night.

My only comment to these rumors is that I would not know because it has been so long since the last time I would not possibly be able to tell. What were the signs again? And although admittedly someone other than Richard has been on my mind rather a lot lately I still worry about just about everything from whether I am treating his wound right to him being happy with his companion and his digestive system working optimally. Richie’s that is.