It was sunny all day yesterday, as far as I could tell from my desk. After leaving work a little later than normal, getting on the wrong freeway entrance, turning around, and sitting in some traffic, I drove right into the rain they kept talking about. Luckily as I kept driving the rain let up. By the time I pulled into the driveway at the barn the rain had stopped and it was nice and sunny out again. The horses were busy mowing the lawn. Tom had part of the lawn roped off so they could graze. If only they would graze in some sort of organized pattern so we could be sure to get all the lawn the same length. Tricia was on her way out from a trip to St. Paul so I chatted with Tom for a bit before getting Axel ready for the lesson.
I think I spend enough time out there not riding that he shouldn't be running away from me when I try to retrieve him with a halter in my hand. But he saw me coming and scooted to the other side of the yard. It wasn't blatant running away, just trying to sneak away in case I didn't notice. He did let me catch him and followed me back to the barn without protest. Groomed him up, he's still a bit fuzzy from winter yet. Gave him a good scratch in his favorite itchy spot, his inner thighs - if you can believe that - I suppose it's not an easy spot to itch yourself if you're a horse. Just as I was done tacking up Tricia drove up. Perfect timing.
We decided to work in the round pen to help him bend more. At first I want to say he's just being stubborn but I think it really boils down to he just doesn't know what I am asking him to do. It was like pulling teeth to get him to go around in a circle in the round pen. He'd take one step at a time and I'd kick and kick and kick until my legs felt like they were going to fall off. There was no momentum at all. We put out a few poles for him to step over to help make him use his rear. After we had switched directions a few times he started to move a little more forward. We managed a few trots over the poles and around the circle. Never more than one circle trotting though and Tricia was jumping around and waving her arms behind us to keep us going. By the end of the lesson, probably 40 minutes or more, he was finally moving a little better. He still will only bend for a few steps at a time and it took so long to get him moving that it's pretty frustrating and feels like we didn't make any progress. But I did get to stop kicking as much by the end so that was progress. We had a few moments when he did something well so we're trying our best to praise him for those moments, hopefully he'll catch on.
He's a lot more forward on the trail so I'm going to make sure when we ride out there he gets praised for doing things he's supposed to be doing. Maybe it'll transfer. Hopefully I can find someone to ride with on Saturday since Tricia won't be able to. I'd like to do some more hill work. It's good for the horses, and fun for the rider ;)
When we finished our lesson we ended up helping Tom deworm all the horses. Definitely not the horses' favorite thing to do. Actually most of the horses were really good about it with the exception of Cody. He just doesn't like having people grab onto his head and mess around with his mouth very much. Luckily Tricia is quick on the draw, and she has a lot more practice of course.
After riding Axel I ran up to one of the WCR barns to help train the new horses. My old riding instructor ended up donating two of her school horses when she closed down her barn. So there were some people out there getting them ready to start working. Looks like they will work out pretty well.
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