WOW!!

WOW! I can't even begin to tell you...Spade has gone further in a week then I have taken any other colt in a month. I rode him down the pipe lines again the last few days and every time I do he gets a better handle then I could ever put on him in the pen. Thursday night I rode him right at 5 hours. He handled it like a champ. He even hung out with the other horses at the beginning of ride night. Everyone that saw him said they couldn't believe that he was so calm. I  tell you once he started trusting me he was locked in. Today I had the ability to go to a mustang friend's house and use her obsticals. She also told me that she would look at him and we could see where he was in his training compared to where he needed to be. I was so happy. I woke up at 6 am more then ready to go feed and load Spade. It has been so long since I have had a horse that I can't wait to see what he is going to do everyday. It has also been a long time that a horse surprise me at how fast he is learning. You can ask any of my clients and they will tell you I can almost tell them to the day, when a horse will finish a task. But with Spade it is like he is sitting in his stall and reading about maneuvers that I haven't taught him yet. Then he comes to the pen and just does it. When I go out to in the woods he has to wait for traffic on 1725 to clear before he crosses. He is so unbelievably calm waiting at the end of the road. It is even a little unnerving to me when there are cars flying by at 60 MPH but he does great. So today when I arrived at Angie's house I wasn't sure what to expect. Spade was a little nervous when he unloaded. Both of us weren't sure at what to do. But Angie was excited to see us. We saddled up and while it was cool we headed out to the obstacles. There was a box on the ground and multiple poles scattered around. There was a drag pole, a bridge, and many other scary looking items. I decided to work on the drag pole first. Angie helped by dragging the pole as Spade and I followed it. He wasn't all that crazy about it in the beginning but before long I was hand walking him with it dragging behind him. Then I started to drag it from the saddle. He was so great. He didn't worry at all. After dragging it around the arena I let him relax before I took to the bridge. At the bridge he was very hesitant and wiggled back and forth. After a few passes and Angie's horse being a buddy Spade stepped up and over. After that he was okay but hesitated at almost every pass. I will continue to work on that.
After an hour of work we took of to go ride the trails. I knew we would be gone a while. We rode for three hours in the woods but it was a blast. I went threw water, gullies, over logs, ran through pastures, and ducked through brush. Spade really had lots of fun. It was funny because Angie would warn me about boogers coming up and Spade didn't once hesitate at anything. I was so proud of him. And to top it all off he did the whole thing on a very loose rein. I was even able to open him up to the point that I felt safe on uneven ground. He was so smooth and quick. I could feel that he had at least two or three more gears before he was his fastest. That made me happy to see that he does have some speed. I keep reminding myself I have six more weeks to tune in everything.  That, in my world, is a long time. Tomorrow we are headed to a barrel race after church. So we will see how he does there.