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Ridiculously late (how did I miss this?) 
To you & lovely pony!
Look at him, all BTDT! 
& What a beeyooteefull barn to have a sleepover 
Will you drive him as well as ride?
Seeing him makes me wish Iād kept up with restarting my now-24yo Hackney in harness.
Though he was never broke to ride & both of us are too old for that rodeo now 
ETA:
Ooops. I re-read & saw you mentioned linedriving him.
For future: Drive On!
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He is so cute! If he goes missing, definitely donāt come looking hereā¦
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Iām in love as much as you! And yeah, thatās one nice resort heās staying in.
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We got back from our āresortā late last night. Topper was a star every time I went to ride him, we were there for 4 days and I was able to ride 3 of those days. I even stopped lunging him after the first day as he was so ho hum and doesnāt have the stamina yet, so I didnāt want to overdo it or overwhelm him when he was being so good. I even changed the game the last day and brought him in after an hour of turnout to see what he would be like getting ready in the barn alone and then being ridden in the indoor with horses still outside. Not a peep or look out of him. Quiet and brave the whole time even when the sun started to stream in and create light/shadows on the ground and on the jumps, he took a little look but no spooking.
I was really shocked on how well he behaved there and settled in so quickly - he was a stallion up until last September and he literally lived in a paddock his whole life alone. Very minimal handling and when we got him in November, he was so scared of everything and was learning how to go in a stall for the nights and how to handle a group turnout at almost 4 years old. So I was expecting some sort of nervousness or retaliation of going back to individual turnout and coming back into a stall from 3pm to 7am. Plus he was in an area by himself in his stall and could just barley see the other horses, but not one peep from him, and he settled right away like heās been there his whole life. He did run around like a mad man for the first hour of his turnout, but settled after that and never ran around again.
He has been living out 24/7 at our place as the weather so far is nice (for the summer months) with my 3 other ponies. I usually start to bring in at night as soon as it becomes muddy and theres no good place for them to sleep/stay out of the mud. So far we have been lucky and no mud, so he is back to living out for now, but I will start to bring in at the end of this month no matter what. I hope to bring him to an indoor from Dec-April so I want to make sure he used to that routine again.
Our plan is to drive him but I hate saying this (its not usually something I EVER say) but heās almost too nice of a pony to drive. My husband always retaliates with a ādriving people need nice ponies too!!ā - (which I donāt disagree with) and Iām sure thats the reason that BRPās are not usually driving ponies in the UK (in fact I donāt know of any pure BRPās that drive - but Iām not sure if its that they donāt have the mind for it or the $ is too high for most to drive them). They are super fancy and tend to be kids ridden ponies, and they are quite the high $ amount to purchase. But only time will tell as we are still very early in the game. He is just learning the idea of what a leg means, how to steer and just learned some new tricks of trot poles (even colourful striped ones!) and cavaletti poles this past weekend. Lots to learn still! Only 8 rides in nowā¦
I must say Iāve started about 20 ponies/horses and so far he has been my favourite and most surprising one so far (donāt tell the others!). I really thought I would have had more issues/spooking considering his background and with the in hand work Iāve done with him (he sure likes to snort and spook at many things when Iām beside him). But heās been super quiet and brave under saddle, 100% opposite than I thought he would be! Such a nice and pleasant surprise. I really enjoy riding him which is a good thing when I donāt have a ton of motivation since I ride alone at home all of the time. No one here to push me to go and rideā¦
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