Sometimes skiving off work is the best thing you can do.

The AC in my house isn't working at the moment and I was already broiling by 10 this morning, so I skived off working Quattro in favor of a leisurely afternoon in the pool. To assuage my guilt, I brought along Heike Bean's wonderful book, Carriage Driving: A Logical Approach Thru Dressage Training as light reading.

If you're interested in training horses for carriage driving, this book is the BIBLE. If you don't have a copy, get one; if you do have a copy, make it a point to browse through it every so often. I had not actually done so lately, and I'm glad I did. It's not that I learned anything NEW (on what was probably my 100th re-read), but I did notice the things she emphasizes.

Once the evening started to cool, I went up and worked Quattro. I made two slight changes to how I was handling him, based on attempting to emphasize the same things I'd been reading about earlier today. And voila - Quattro was TEN KINDS OF AWESOME.

This time yesterday I was ready to pack the lad off to Saddlebred school, put the big shoes on him and make him a park horse (which he could in fact do pretty well at, IMO). Today, not so much! :-) Thanks, Heike!!

Oh and BTW: have I mentioned he's getting better about baths? The first time I gave him one, he broke a NYLON halter and just about pulled a big thick iron rail out of the massive concrete block it was fixed in. I haven't been "schooling" him on this per se, because I sorta figured that working hard in the Southern heat and humidity would make him change his mind real quick once summer came. I was right about that. Tonight he even learned how to drink from the hose.

Progress is being made, and the adventure continues!