Ever since I have known him (more than 15 years now!), a nice, bright, warm, sunny day any time from Feb onwards is the cue for him to completely lose his normally shaky hold on good manners.
You might think that, at the age of 25, he is old enough to know better; you might think that the fact that he is only in light work and has a coat like a woolly mammoth would make him think twice about galloping flat out up the road. You would be wrong.
The problem is that he is just as competitive now as he was when we first got him - its the reason you can't take him hunting, unless there is no-one else out (!), because he doesn't tolerate other horses in front of him for any reason. It makes him a great horse to take on a trip like Ride Bare, because he never runs out of curiosity about what's round the next corner, and he doesn't in the least mind going hundreds of miles in unfamiliar country on his own.
Usually he is fine to lead other horses from, but the other day he tried to get into a race with Paul and today he tried it with Angel...Luckily both of them have better manners than Ghost...
Bless! I really think that you should have had him put down after several years in bar shoes and still lame though ......
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Would have been a bit of a waste, but boy, it would have saved me some white-knuckle rides :-)
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