It’s been a good decision. I’ve been able to get on with some work, and Shah has been pottering around in the field, getting more and more bored. He’s now full of beans and ready to work – just a small snag – I suspect he’s enjoying the quiet life a little too much!
We started up our training last week and after being used to go for a hack once or twice a week for the past couple of months Shah was surprised to say the least when I put his saddle on two days on the trot! His face was a picture when we got to the gate “you have to be kidding, going out for a ride today again, we only did it yesterday”, his large eyes begging to go in and have dinner instead of exercising. As the weather was dark and horrible I took him in the school for a walk/trot session and it was like riding glue! He tried every trick in the book to convince me he really can’t go any faster than a donkey walk – made me laugh out loud several times 
With some more days and walks under our belt we’ll be ready to start proper training soon and I’m sure he’ll get better once he starts to get fit again. I’ve designed a training schedule for the next few months which I’m hoping we can stick to and our first goal for 2008 is a training ride just down the road from us in February. It’s only 24km and, weather pending, I’m hoping it will kick us back into endurance gear.
There are a few looming clouds on the horizon that might stop our progress, his cough is one of them, but fingers crossed we can actually start at the beginning of the season this time.
If our training schedule works I will publish it here to keep a record of what we did to get fit for our first 65km ride.
