Blog news by Angie, David’s Barn/Business Manager

6:00 am. The dust settled on the earth after the nighttime’s moisture has laid down yesterday’s dust from activity. You hear muffled grunts and groans from an early morning roll or rest in shavings as they raise their large bodies to the attention of the sun. It’s breakfast time and the clanging and banging begins. The "feed me first" calling alerted by one is followed by everyone in the barn; the arrival of people means the arrival of their favorite time of the day: food time. Albert with his keen sense of his stomach, is right up there with the best of them, displaying his grandest effort to get feed first. Although his manners are excellent as his door slides open with the arrival of Israel and a bag of Triple Crown Compete, with 2 scoops Platinum Performance, a scoop of flax seed and his daily Strongid, Albert dives in like it’s the last meal he’ll ever receive. The flake of alfalfa and the flake of oat hay are ignored until every last piece of grain is consumed, then his feeder is licked clean of all remaining supplements. Some might call him an easy keeper.

Albert is the first horse of the day to get ridden. One might ask "Why is he always the first?" The answer is plain and simple. If you knew Albert, you’d see he has more energy then the Energizer Bunny: he could work all day and then some. His strength and endurance are inexhaustible, therefore the answer is clear: David has to have the energy to ride him. There you go, Albert gets ridden first for David’s sake. David says his own reflexes have to be lightening fast to stay up and contain Albert’s zest for life. He says that if he is in the least bit tired and has to remind any part of his body when to “HALF HALT” it will be too late. I suppose most truly talented horses are generally more difficult to ride as their athletic abilities allow them to do things others just wouldn’t. This is why it takes a truly talented rider to allow the horse to express his talents and not fall off. Such is the team of David and Lord Albert.

It seems like just yesterday (October 6, 2006) that Albert arrived at the barn. Having only been gelded for about 3 weeks, his coat still had the mirror-like luster of a stallion. David had gone down to Steffen & Shannon Peter’s to pick up his new pride and joy. As Albert stepped of the rig he was a display of beauty and confidence. You know the type: they look around as if to say “I’m here now so you can start the cameras rolling.” In the beginning when walking him in hand, he was so sure of himself he thought it was best to pull away from his handler and take tours around the barn. One morning after expertly getting away from Dave, he jumped the fence to join the horses out in a 10-acre pasture. Thank goodness he’s through this part of his training and has not even attempted to get away in months.

First day of lunging. As I said, the strength of Albert is amazing. Before David got on Albert the first time at the barn, he thought he should lunge him first. With saddle and side reins on, he lead Albert, aka Rocket (David’s nickname for him), to the arena. Dave snaps on the side reins and sent Albert out on the lunge. On about the 3rd loop around, Albert simply stopped, flexed his lower neck muscles and both the snaps on the side reins broke. Dave, Samantha (his assistant at the time) and I all just looked at each other in disbelief. I asked him what he was going to do, he shrugged and said, “I guess I'll get on.” And so he did. Sam and I held our breath waiting for Albert to buck Dave off. Ok, I’m going to share a little secret with you, I’ve been working with David for over 4 years and I’ve seem him ride the wildest of horses and I’ve never seen him come off. I have to admit there might have been a tiny, tiny part of me that wanted to be there to witness a fall. But, true to his abilities, Dave stayed on and today Albert has (for the most part) quit trying to buck David off.

- Angie