That is the phrase for the week, that I have heard from three different people: "He is not the same horse." It is a complement, and a vindication of all the careful work I've been doing for the past 5 years, and particularly the last one.

One friend who has not seen Oakley in over a year came up to watch me ride & do some simple figures. She doesn't know a lot about horses, but could tell he has improved to a huge degree, even in the past year.

Wednesday, I put him onto the trailer & took him up to a riding class at my friend Jan's school. I've been learning to jump with her horses once a week for several months. The last time she saw him try to do any jumping was last year. This time, Oakley, once he settled down at the excitement of being someplace different, didn't balk, or even hesitate to go over the jumps that were set out. He came down on the correct lead every single time, and I even managed to spend time during the lesson carefully desensitizing him to a wooden bridge, so by the time we were done, he was walking over it instead of running away. A few more experiences like this & I think he'll be OK to take to an eventing show. (I am, of course, reluctant to repeat the experience of my only show with Oakley thus far, because it is very expensive to have a horse refuse the first fence, and taking him away, per the rules, pretty much rewards him for that, so I need to be very sure before we plunk down the cash even for the beginner levels.)

The next night, I let another friend, who runs a horse-barn in Florida, ride him for 40 minutes. The previous time she rode him, two years ago, her assessment was that he constantly needed lots of impulsion, obviously tested the rider at every step, and was a difficult horse, probably suitable for mid-level students as a test of their ability. This time, she praised his lightness and willingness to go forward, his smooth gaits and transitions and, well, concluded, as had everyone else who hasn't seen him in a while, that, "He is not the same horse."