What he would have been

This is Hawkeye, or Haywire as Linda now calls him. He is Turbo's oldest sibling, he just turned three.

I took him to the Shawnee on Sunday, for his first trip down there. I did not really care who went, but he offered, so I considered it an opportunity to get to know his riding better.

Things I knew about him from the trainer: he is extremely athletic but can be obstinant if he does not want to do something. I have ridden him a lot around the farm, Barry has ridden him at Hutch's, Even Ashlyn has ridden him, and did fine --and there is no doubt about the athleticism, but we have never really had any issues with the stubborn. I chalk that up to there being no way we can ever ask for as much out of a horse as the Secret Weapon can.


We had a few interesting events on this trip--that may be an understatement. He refused to cross a bit of water---then it occurred to me that he was at the trainer during the heart of the drought so even though he has water running through his pasture, he is not used to being ridden through it. The first little shallow crossing required the assistance of Woodrow to drag us through--good thing he is like a Mack truck. Hawk ended up launching himself up in the air and almost landing on him. I took a horn to the gut, but the important part is that he got over the water.

The next crossing he did not need to be dragged but decided to launch himself UP and over--he was sky high and Head said he could have read the Tribune between my ass and the saddle--I do not know if that was a reference to how high out of it I was, or how much hang time I had. In any event, I again did not fall off, and evidently it scared the pee out of Hawk, as that was the last of that foolishness for the rest of the day (we had other kinds but they did not involve water)
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By the end of the day, he was happily crossing big creeks, water up over his hocks were no issue--he was awesome. It was a good day because he learned it so well, even if I did not know that he did not know it already.

I did get to see his stubborn side when we got done--he did not want to load. It was a mess.

When we got home, he got more trailer practice--he knows how to do it and will run and jump in no problem--until you piss him off, then he refuses and you have to start over. We will keep working on that submission.