Progress

With the new home made track our two three year olds for the first time are officially into serious race prep.

We're fairly excited about this around here, and the galloping progress just over the last few days.  It seems the formerly uneven ground on the mud flat left by the road crew has settled just in time to permit this, and also alleviate my concerns about having a concussive surface sufficient to develop bone toughness for dirt racing.

I walked the whole course yesterday.  It's plenty big enough for serious training, and I believe--knocking on wood--that we can take the horses pretty close to racing on this.

Time to start documenting actual race training.  The idea is daily "progress"--opening stages.

6/25:  #17 after warm up galloped 4 times to top of rise, each time a little faster until the last was a good open gallop.  The horse did much better than Mr. Nob, who is a little rusty, galloping wise, and is complaining about the new saddle.

#148  While we coaxed a little trot out of the big fellow, otherwise the horse was in protest mode--refusing rider aid or direction, including taking our rider sideways up a sharp rise, walking into dangerous depressions, etc--out of control.  We're a little too far along for this to be happening, and so, instead of thumping the horse, Nob decided, after working with the horse a good long while, to let it pass to another day.  #148 is too smart a horse for misbehavior mode to continue.  Will see what happens today.