Talk about being neglectful. I haven’t touched this blog since last July! Crazy, I know. I think I might be doing something with this again this summer, but no guarantees.

Looking at the old entries of me talking about Val just makes me laugh. Valerius is no longer (and really never was) a teddy bear. He’s a very fit horse who’s affection toleration level is pathetically low, but I love him just the same. He’s got a stubborn streak, and the ability to undulate his body with mini-canter “strides”/rears/bucks, which is actually pretty silly looking and feeling.

Honestly, he’s the farthest thing from what I’d thought I’d get when I bought a horse. I wanted something fairly tall, probably some kind of warmblood, and bay, or, if the universe was with me, a beautiful dapple gray.

And really, sometimes life just likes to let you know exactly how poor a judge we are of our own wants and needs. Val’s essentially got “perfect first horse” branded on his attractive, blue-eyed noggin.

He was kind and forgiving when we first got him, mostly because he was fat, out of shape, and not really trained. His enjoyment of life and spark has increased, making him a slightly more challenging horse to ride, but still Valerius, and still mostly kind and forgiving. And he enjoys jumping.

And the PFH quality my mother likes the most? He has a good set of brakes.