by Leueen Willoughby horseaddict.net

When the Rider is Sick ...

“Bring out your dead!”  “Bring out your dead!”   No, I’m just kidding. But… we have had the plague in  our house this week.  I am blaming the miserable weather ( cold and incessantly raining).  I have been too sick to ride. So….now you know I am really feeling pretty bad. But there is an upside.

I had to wave the white flag of surrender on even going  to the barn on Wednesday so my coach Belinda Trussell rode Biasini.  Then on Thursday I felt well enough to go to the barn and tack Biasini up but not to ride. Here is the upside!  How marvelous is it to watch an Olympian ride your horse?

Biasini really did his best to do everything that was asked of him. Belinda said she kept telling him he did not need to give quite so much but he just kept  saying : “No, No I can do it , I can do it!”

Here are a couple of video clips. I took them with my phone so the quality is not so good but you will get the idea. First here is some trot work and a lovely half pass the entire width of the arena.

Belinda tells me that Biasini has the ability to do a lovely passage (slow motion trot) and it is just a matter of him getting more control of his balance.  Then they went on to work on the canter pirouettes.  They were at the  other end of the arena so the two pirouettes to the right are rather far away  but keep watching as she  brings him down to the center of the arena for the pirouette left.

If you hear grunting that is Biasini telling us he is working hard. But don’t worry he is not in any difficulty.

I know that when I came home from Florida Biasini was ridden by my Florida coach, Luis Reteguiz Denizard, for a week until he came home to Oakcrest. So he has been in good training during that time.  Now this week he has had Belinda ride him twice.

“How do you feel about watching him?” my husband asked me over breakfast on Friday. ” Do you think ‘Oh,I’ll never be able to do that’ or ‘Wow, that’s amazing!” Here is what I replied.

” I am so proud of my horse. So proud that he worked hard for Belinda and tried to give her 110%”

“I may not be able to re-produce that quality right now but eventually I will get it. ”

“I am so excited to see that he has this talent for these movements. I can see that we can go places together with this talent.”

“I’m thrilled.”

And that, Dear Readers, is the upside to being sick.