Nostalgic Summer

There is something about the season of Summer that is so nostalgic.  Whenever the sun is shining and it's really warm, you just can't help but be taken back to the good old days when you lived for the outdoors and you ran until you were sunburnt, bug bitten, and covered in scrapes and bruises.  

Being a grown up and working through the summer is probably the worst thing in the world.  You just never get to take advantage of summer the way it was meant to be taken advantage of.  Because I am on vacation right now, I decided on Monday to visit my friend, A, and meet her new horse Axle.  

And I can say with a full heart that it was absolutely the most perfect summer day I have had in a very long time.  And I have the sunburn and the bug bites to prove it!

First of all, Axle is a four year old QH.  I was not 100% on board with A getting a four year old when she got him a couple months ago because she had to sell her perfectly good, already fully trained, perfectly amazing mare to acquire him.  

She has been telling me ever since she got him that he is just the calmest, sweetest, non-four year old four year old she's ever met, and frankly I didn't believe her.  I mean, he's four.  No four year old is that perfect.  But after meeting him Monday, I can say that I wholeheartedly agree.  He's got manners and a mind, that's for sure.

He's a smart little bugger too.  I gave him a bit of a lesson on
The Program and he picked it up really fast.

He had been on stall rest all week, we took him out, lunged him for ten seconds, he bucked once, and then we rode him on a trail ride with absolutely no hiccups.  I mean, my professionally trained bombproof QH would probably have a little more to say about that than this guy!

A is currently house sitting for someone and we had the house and the barn and the arena all to ourselves.  We went for a 2 hour trail ride and galloped her horse on the marsh.  It was by far one of the most thrilling things I've done on horseback in a long time.  Needless to say, speed really isn't Walker's thing.  

A is a barrel racer, and she has actually been a little concerned about Axle's reluctance to gallop.  Apparently the key to that is to lock him up for a week, bring him to a wide open space, and let the other horse gallop home without him.  Let me tell you that I have never moved so fast in my life as on the back of that little four year old who thought his buddy was leaving him out there.  Although we gave the other horse a good 40 feet head start, Axle easily passed him.  

A was so excited that she made me switch horses with her (since I was riding Axle) just so that she could gallop him too.  

Because of Walker's soundness issues, the trail has become a scary place for me.  I'm always nervous that he is going to hurt himself because he can barely manage to work in the arena without going lame.  Riding these two horses was just a breath of fresh air as they breezed themselves over that uneven ground with no care in the world. 

It was one of those moments where you have to get off your horse's back because his legs are going a mile a minute, the sun is shining, you're out in this secluded field, and you just want to put both arms out and fly.

It was perfect.