#LittleAsshole is Growing Up

My original plan was to send Sullivan to the same trainer who started his sire. I really liked what Roland did for Ritchie and was hopeful for a repeat on my little guy.

Unfortunately Roland is booked almost 16 months in advance. So back in summer of 2015 I booked my then yearling in for 30 days in February of 2017 and 30 days in January of 2018. The plan was to put an initial 30 days on him as a late 2 year old and then another as a late 3 year old with minimal work in the meantime.

And then my yearling grew very very slowly. His joints as still huge and open and he's physically immature. And small. He finally hit 15HH in January (for the record his sire is 16.2, his dam is 15.2 but throws big babies, the last 1/2 warmblood is 17HH). And mentally he's taking his sweet time maturing as well.

He doesn't look small next to the cutting horses

So I decided that sending him for 30 days at this point was not the best value. He's at a point where he can really only handle 15 minutes of work/pressure every few days. So if I sent him he'd likely only end up with 4-5 hours of work over the month.

My mom used to train horses for a living and I've started a few on my own (under her supervision) so we decided that since Sullivan was going to be spending the winter with my mom anyways we would start him ourselves over the winter. This gave us the opportunity to do it very slowly in order to keep with his current abilities.

Since neither one of us was interested in putting the first few rides on my mom called in a favour and got one of her clients, a professional cutting trainer, to put the first few rides on, just to be safe. Sullivan was a star for it all. He bucked when he was first saddled and then hasn't even considered it since.

No longer just a pasture pet!

He's now had 10 rides, spread over the course of 4 months. He's willing, curious and brave. I couldn't ask for a better baby horse. I haven't had a chance to see him go in person yet but the videos make me super excited about his future.

Ride 8, and look at how balanced his canter is

He' going to stay with my mom for the summer and then come home in the fall. He's so happy there and it's very good for him as he has a 40 acre field, on the side of a hill, and a herd of 15 to terrorize. My place is only 4 acres so having one less to graze makes pasture management easier.

I can't wait until I finally get to sit on him. It's a dream that's been in the making for over 5 years.

It's hard to believe this was less than 3 years ago