Modus Operatus

Art is a funny guy. He's a two year and they have their moments of shear and utter loonancy. He also has his moment's of sheer brillance. I have to take Art as he is right now since I'm not interested in pushing him too hard as a 2 year old. He's coming together wonderfully, don't get me wrong, but I still have to put up with Art's "M.O." Art is a gawker. He loves to look at everything the first 15 minutes we work. Oh, I could yank and pull on him and turn him in circles and do everything under the sun to get him to pay attention to me, but that stuff doesn't work. He just likes to look at everything for a while and when he's seen it all, he gets to work. And work he does. Our first show was a couple of weeks ago and it was just a little local show, but I really wanted to ride him in a couple of classes. I even only brought my english saddle to ride so I wouldn't chicken out and not switch prior to a class. So here we are, me and Art, walking around the show grounds. I'm talking to Art, telling him to relax and take it easy and this is Art: "Oh my gosh, look at that, no wait, look at that! Holy crap, did you see that??!! I don't ever think I've seen anything like that before. Wait, what was THAT!!!!!! I let him go through his spastic ritual of looking at everything, all wide eyed and alert and then we slowly got to bending and flexing and trotting and loping. By the time our class came around, he was all warmed up and ready. We came away from that show with firsts and seconds in all our classes. And yes, this was an open show, but it was a show with a lot of seasoned open horses. He's just my baby...a baby with ADD, but my baby. And I love him...