Oh, what a lovely day!

     Today was destined to be great. It was sunny, warm, and skies were blue! I love days like this, because it seems to give you a burst of energy and willingness for the day! I think Udex felt this positive energy too.

View from barn

We had a lovely ride this morning! I am so impressed! Just a week ago, 15 minutes in walk and Udex was soaked in sweat! Today? Lets try a good riding hour, with just a very little bit of sweat on his chest! Wow, talk about impressive!!! It was a fantastic ride. He really is improving drastically! I was expecting this all to move a bit slower, but boy am I shocked!!! We are moving down this path as fast as a race horse!

Udex I taking a moment to forget about posture.

     Another great thing happened today.... Now, usually Udex would roll on the left side, get up, and then roll on the right side. To the un-uneducated spectator, that would more then likely mean no big deal, the way he rolls is just a habit, but actually when a horse does not roll on over to the other side, it almost always means there is a back/muscle problem (as in Udex's case.) Today Udex actually rolled and flipped over to the other side! What does this mean?? It means that all this walking I have been doing with him is really starting to pay off! I am sooooo happy!!! To see him roll like that, wow. I am really at loss of words!!! It just goes to show you, that with time, love, effort, and a bond, ANYTHING is possible. I have a lot of blisters right now from walking in that heavy sand next to my horse... But honestly, I don't care! Blisters are so worth it for Udex!

Sharing the Arena

Tonight I was very impressed with Udex. Although he has been in the arena numerous amounts of times before, tonight was his first time sharing the arena with another lovely horse. To be more specific, the other horse is not boarded at the barn, but trailed to the barn for use of the arena, (making the horse a total stranger to him.) At first, I was a little nervous to see Udex's reaction to this new mare. I was lunging Udex when the mare arrived. At first, Udex was a bit excited and did start to speed up his canter. Though after about a minute he calmed down and slowed down to a very nice relaxed, ideal, canter. He handled the situation perfectly, I could not have asked for better.

HUGE improvement!

       Now, as you know, Udex's muscles are not as good as they used to be. In order to re-develop his muscles, I need to walk Udex a lot more then I would a normal, up to par horse. When he walks, he is working on using his hind leg muscles, resulting in him developing those muscles! (Yay!)  For the past few days I have been walking him a lot... Today I saw the difference. HE WALKED WHILE HE WAS ON THE LUNGE!!!!!! This is great news!! Before, udex would not want to walk, due to it being a bit uncomfortable for him. Today I saw the past few days really pay off. The fact that he decided to walk instead of just stop or start a trot, really means a lot to me!!! Already my horse is improving drastically! To name a few improvements, he is walking more, looking shiny, listening to me perfectly, recognizes his name, a lot calmer, and so many other things I could add to the list!

    Overall, I am very impressed with him tonight! There are many other ways that the night could have went, but luckily for me, my horse trusted me enough to show him the way. I am so thankful for Udex, and his willingness to learn. Tonight was fantastic!

The Journey

       Why buy a horse like Udex? I mean, who in their right mind would want to buy an underweight, un-muscular, scrawny, HUGE, energetic warmblood? ("Me! Me! Me!!") An ideal first horse for a thirteen year old girl, would probably be a horse that is calm, sweet, muscular, well fed, and well ridden, that you could take to shows several months after buying, and ride everyday after it arrives at your barn. That's not the case with my Udex though!

   While looking for a rescue horse to fix up, I came across Udex. I almost immediately knew that he was the horse for me.
I am truly lucky to have such an amazing horse. I honestly can say that I am proud that my horse needs work. To me, that means that my horse and I are on a journey together. On our journey, we will both become disappointed, share our happy moments, have many laughs, have our falls, have our times when giving up comes to question, spend lots of time on just working out little flaws, and also become frustrated, but most importantly... We will achieve the one thing that matters most in the horse world... A bond. I know that together, Udex and I can accomplish all of our goals and prove many people wrong. The key to success with a horse is trust, a bond, patience, and love. I know that it will be anything but easy to complete our journey. There will be many days when I will question the goal... But I know, that in the end, we will complete our journey successfully and that the prize is oh, so worth it. So here we are, at the beginning of our very long journey. I know that together, Udex and I, we will do this.