For the past few weeks, I’ve been eying a clinic with Sally Cousins at MidAtlantic on Easter. It was a thoroughbred only clinic and free for MAHR grads. Perfect. I thought this would be a great first outing for Cairo. So, I signed us up.

Cairo had other plans. He has had some issues with the trailer (I mean, I’m not exactly surprised after his injury). But, he was loading. Backing out was the issue. Still, when we removed the divider, he could turn around and walk off. It was fine. And then it wasn’t. It escalated and I decided that we need professional help with the process. The thing is, my trailer could be too small, but the same no-loading issue also exists with a large gooseneck with ramp so it’s a loading/trailer issue in general. Stay tuned.

Anyway, Friday, in a fit of frustration, I decided I didn’t want to scratch the clinic. Enter Nay Nay. I decided to sub him in and see what I had. I told my trainer, she was on board (thought he’d be OK as long as he didn’t have an anxiety day —me too me too), and the goal was just to plan for a positive experience.

Keep in mind, this was all after he was an anxious nut on Thursday. Lol

So I rode Friday and Saturday and made sure he was a prepped as possible. He was. He was tired. Then Sunday morning we lunged while he screamed for Cairo because Cairo screamed for him first. And then off we went.

We got there and… nothing.

Tacked up with the plan to hand walk for 20-30 minutes but I ended up getting on after 10 and just walking. He was calm and fine even with a super green OTTB in the ring having very green bean moments. Nay Nay was the picture of maturity.

When Sally joined us, we all shared a bit about our horses. Nay was a bit out of place (he was taking Cai’s spot), but I think it worked. No expectations and I shared that he was either wonderful or an anxious mess. Plus he was coming off 18 months off.

We just started easy. Walking poles, then trotting them. Nay was lovely. He loved the approach of just easy and simple and building on exercises. Plus not crazy flatwork. Then we worked on poles in a figure eight adding some bending. Finally, cross rails. To the right? Half circle approach? No issue. To the left, we stopped the first time so we just talked a bit about under power vs overpower (he had zero issue the second or third time). I did mention that Nay loves the long spot so finding that happy medium is tricky. Extra power sometimes gives him a bit of encouragement to go for the long.

From here we did a line of cross rails on each side, working on approach/turn into the line. Nay was fantastic for each and impressed his audience and fans (right, Nay Nay also had a fan club who remembered him from his time at MAHR lol). He trotted in/cantered out a crazy even 5 every time on both lines/both leads. Even woahing for the add when I asked. Could not be more impressed with him.

We did a couple courses combining the poles with the cross rails. No issues.

We ended with some cross rails to vertical lines. Nothing hard. No issue for Nay. We did in a couple of times and I called it a day. One of the horses had been excused and I could feel Nay’s quarter expiring so after he was so perfect, I chose to end. Putting the jump up another hole or so wouldn’t change anything. He could jump it. Not the issue. He was tired and over it at that point.