Eole - november 27, 2008

Eole is one of the five horses I have preferred most among the nearly 200 I have known so far in my horseman 'career'. He is a SF gelding, with much blood, of medium size, embellished by a copper chestnut coat, very fine and silky. Lovely type, wonderful soft eyes, beautiful gaits and true kindness, while being warm and sensitive despite his age (17) - a dream horse. The picture dates back to summer 2006. I have been riding him once a week for about two years. He belongs to the barn, and is ridden by other riders of fairly good level, both in dressage and show jumping. I ride him in dressage, in a small group lesson of 3 to 4 riders, or individually. I ride him in double bridle, with small polo ball spurs. Today, we started the walk session (10') with neck extension, flexions , then shoulder-ins, halts on the middle line, backreinings on three steps. Also we did haunches out on half-voltes. Then we did the same exercises at trot (15') first posting then sitting, with some extended trot on the diagonal in addition. The canter session lasted about 20' with relaxation at walknow and then. Shoulder-fore, variations of speed, work on the circle down to small circles (diameter equal to the horse length) where Eole was particularly brilliant: calm, slow, 'seated' on the haunches, in lightness! Then yielding to the isolated leg on half an arena length - he is ready for half-pass at canter. During the whole session, Eole was in lightness, with a lovely 'lipstick', getting far and deep into each corner with easy bending. I experienced not a single resistance even on the right hand side which is generally a little stiffer. It was a thoroughly enjoyable session.
Eole has made a lot of progress since I first knew him, when he was fairly on his toes, with a head carriage too high and with the nose up. He also had some stiffness on right handside, hindquarters that 'escaped' easily and a tendency to rush a little at canter. These problems have been largely reduced even if they need still some attention, but thanks to the work of all of us in our little group dedicated to him, he is now supple, light and no less warm - as I said already a dream horse indeed! As it often happens, he has become less easy for more junior riders. He shows lesser tolerance for faults such as wrong opposition between hands and legs, or unstable seat. In such cases he gets heated, disorganised and restless - but this is common among horses that have reached a certain level of dressage, and have been thereby sharpened to finer and coherent aids.