Okay so I know I’ve posted a lot of these pictures already, but I made sort of a history of Charlie and I together and this shows good contrast of before and after.
So many of you know that I have my own horse, a 6 year old Thoroughbred named Charlie. I bought him last October pretty much right off the track. Here is a picture of him while he was still racing:
Skinny, alert, and probably very rambunctious, judging from the chain over his nose. So then my trainer bought him from a lady that had him for a little bit after he retired after racing. This is in February of '05, the very first day he was at our barn:
He was absolutely petrified of everything, cowering in the back of his stall, sweating like crazy, shaggy, and out of shape. The poor guy didn’t know what to make of this new place. My trainer was already talking about sending him back, after seeing how he reacted to moving here. I told her she should keep him for awhile and see how he was. (yay!) He got a lot better, but was still pretty spooky, hard to ride, and green (wouldn’t bend at all, liked to race around a lot…etc). I was one of the only people at the barn who could ride him at all. So I started thinking about buying him. I worked out a plan of payment and boarding fees, and somehow I managed to spring for him! This is what he looked at around then (excuse my position, I was using all of my might to contain him over these jumps which kinda threw me off sometimes 
)
As you can see, much more muscle on him, a good weight, and he was much happier at this point too. Still kind of a nutcase under saddle though. Now, after owning him nearly a year, he is seriously a different horse. Previously severely head-shy, I can touch him all around his ears without him minding too much. He’s gotten much less spooky. He used to have his head way up in the air while riding, now he goes around like a pleasure horse with his head very low. Basically everything about him is different! Here are a couple photos I took of him running loose in the ring and make-shift lunging:
He is all around a much healthier horse than he was last fall, physically, mentally, and emotionally. If I hadn’t bought him, I doubt my trainer would have kept him. Here are 2 pics my brother took of my riding yesterday. They are super dark, but Charlie looks nice in them. Again, no critiques on my position, I was focusing solely on him during that ride (piano hands, ahh!)
So that’s basically the story of Charlie and I thusfar! That took some time, but I was bored. Hope you like my boy!