Hacking going really well at the moment, though the rock hard ground means no cantering and it's been so hot I'm doing shorter hacks - he's coping with the heat better than me. We've been through the river in the scary direction several more times, still a little hesitant sometimes but dealing with it and happy to have a splash and play once he's in. Going in the other direction there are no such hesitations, he'll have a snack of the willow on the edge then off we go, in fact a couple of times he's tried picking up trot and been clearly miffed at being told walk - the footing is uneven and unstable due to large stones and depth variation.
Still getting people commenting on it's nice to see a stalllion hacking around and asking where he stands
Had an interesting encounter with an old but beautifully done up Enfield motorbike yesterday. Luka's normally indifferent to motorbikes rgardless of whether their road or off road ones, but the noise this one made, and possibly how shiny it was, had him very focused on it as it came up to a junction. I had cars behind me so I stopped and waved them by, while talking to the rider who I know. Said to him to go first rather than have to come past us and he very slowly pulled away as Luka stood more and more on tiptoe. I was expecting a reluctance to go forward, I was not expecting him to set off in hot pursuit in a huge trot when I said "come on then" (my lazy not using leg cue to move) and I was outright shocked when my "oi!"and finger on neck produced canter instead of the slower trot he knows that means!!!! A proper ask did get trot for about thre strides before he broke to canter again with a neck shake and ears almost touching at the tips - ha badly wanted to catch that bike and since it was a 20mph zone it wasn't going out of sight as fast as I'd have liked
He did come back to a polite trot when told again but consoled himself with plenty of flash, and yelled when it finally went out of sight. I really do not know what that was about, he certainly wasn't scared, he'd heard Colin speak so knew who it was, and chasing vehicles isn't a pastime for either of us. Funny boy!
). Nothing dramatic, just stopped dead, threw his head and neck up and froze. Another friend was coming towards us in her car so I thought it easiest to just hop off and lead him given he'll always come with me if I get between him and the monster. And that was when I came across a new problem - his massive neck was so high and back I couldn't lean forward to swing my leg over the saddle! He was so focused I couldn't get him to take a treat which would have turned and dropped it slightly, and there was no way he was taking his eyes off it to turn. All I could do was back him up until the car was out of sight, at which point he dropped enough that I could make an undignified scrambling dismount, thank God he didn't object to having his bum used as a push off because he was still too high to lean properly forwards. He did then lead forwards, though I couldn't reach to get the reins over his head so was walking more beside him than in front. He's 14.3 for Heaven's sake, how does a 14.3 tower so high?!
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