Everything is exhausting

I've known from Ride One that Opie errs on the side of "When in doubt, just quit." Really, I'm not sure why he wasn't a more successful racehorse!

He was primed to race last Monday which instead turned into his first ride off the track. Aside from not being able to stand still at the mounting block, he walked and trotted both directions without any issues whatsoever. Not once did I fear he was going to snatch the bit and make a run for it. In fact, by the end of the ride I was having to leg him on to get him to walk faster than a slug.

I also learned right away that this is a horse that loves his sleepy time. The first morning he was here, he was covered head-to-toe in shavings from a good snooze in his stall overnight.

grand champion of sleeping.

Yesterday morning, A texted me that Opie had pulled both his water buckets from the wall (who knows how) and dumped them all over his stall, flooding it. Obviously he couldn't snuggle in and sleep in a swimming pool.

I got his stall stripped and dried before taking him into the ring for a little longe work. I couldn't find a longe whip anywhere, but he has a pretty clear idea of what longeing is so we got w/t done both directions before I started taking him over a couple small verticals I set up with flower boxes underneath. He happily popped right over every time, finally learning by the end that he wouldn't whack his footsies if he just lifted them a little higher.

All in all it was about fifteen total minutes of work. I pulled the bridle off and let him loose so I could go grab him one of his friends. Everyone was inside because of obscene winds, so I wanted him to get a little extra time out of his stall.

Ralph strolled right over to the filled hay nets and got to work stuffing his face. Opie sidled up as close to Ralph as he could and lay down. I was like, "Um. Whut. What are you doing? Are you dying? Are you colicking? What is this?"

ralph is judging you so hard, opie

Nope. Opie got settled in, Ralph gave him side eye for trying to lay under his feet and moved on to the next hay net, and Opie...passed the fuck out. Lip drooped to the ground, snoot buried in the sand, mule ears twitching away.

Horsing is hard, yo.

he tried to bite me shortly after this.
do not disturb. apparently.