Imax at the Sea

Oh my god Imax was a CHAMP. We went to Ocean Shores pn Sept 8th with nine other horses and riders. He had never been to the beach before.

We rode in the WATER and even cantered in the water.
I sort of tricked him into the water, we were in the middle of the pack of horses, and there were non-spastic horses around him, and they just normally kept walking when the water came up, and he suddenly realized - hey! the ground is WET!! He snorted and shimmied around, would stop suddenly and then just as suddenly start. But he calmed down pretty quickly and more or less normally walk trot, and cantered in two inches of water.

But at first when we got there, even damp sand was highly suspect and he had to shy around the patches until he realized all of the whole ground was nothing but damp sand, and then he started to forget about the shying.

We also went up and down sand dunes, all over the beach. After about two hours though, he decided he had had enough, and had a little spaz and would only walk sideways. So we just went the rest of the way to the trailer sideways. It wasn't nearly as fun for him when I was Telling him to go sideways, though.

Then in our afternoon ride we went for a gallop (!!!!) and he is FAST. I was holding him with all my strength, and he still passed everybody. I can't imagine how fast he would have gone if I'd let him go. Scary! But when I started asking him to stop, he did (eventually) but then he was so keyed up he sort of did this little jog/prance thing - he was a hit with the civillians on the beach. Lots of phone pictures of us out there now.

This is the only photo I got the whole time, I was too busy hanging on to take pictures...

Anyhow, so much fun. He is such a good boy.