Saturday Trail Ride

Right as I drive up the road to the barn I see all the horses heading through the gate down to the back pasture. Really great timing. Luckily they had stopped right after the gate so they weren't too difficult to catch. I was planning on bringing my camera on the ride but Cody was acting pretty pissed that I took him away from his herd, I figured I better not risk it in case he did something stupid. He did calm down once we started riding. I just can't get him to cross the bridge on his own. He'll back away from it until Axel crosses first.

We rode around the top of the hill and then went into the woods. We rode to the opposite side of the property where the other hill is. We walked up and down the hills and then cantered up a few times. It's a good workout, they were getting sweaty at that point.

After the hill work we went back to the open area at the top of the hill and worked on some trotting in circles. Axel apparently needs quite a bit of help right now. He pops his outside shoulder out so Tricia had her outside leg in front of the girth to hold him in the circle, and her inside leg behind the girth to keep his hindquarters out. Basically riding backwards from how most dressage horses ride. He'll get it eventually. I guess he wasn't bending quite as easily as he had in the past so we're gonna work in the round pen on Tuesday for our lesson. So around and around and around we went. Cody doesn't quite understand the whole circle thing but he's getting it. He doesn't bend the right direction but I think that's in protest. By the end I think I had him pretty tired out, he was trotting slower and slower, which is a nice change from his usual frantic trot.

We had one small wrestling match when Cody wanted to go back down the hill and I wanted to take a small loop back through part of the woods. We fought it out a few times and I finally won, we walked back up the hill and made the loop twice before going back towards the barn. He fights with me less and less each ride but when we do fight over something it takes a while to win the battle. Eventually I want to start working with him alone, but that might be a while before we do that. He's pretty attached to his herd. But even after taking him away from his buddies and making him trot in circles and go up and down hills til he was drenched in sweat, he still doesn't hate me, comes to see what I am doing when I am still hanging around the paddock.

After our ride we hung out for a bit while the horses all took a bit of a nap under the overhang. Tricia had to head home and I took Beau for a little walk down the road and then he helped mow the lawn a bit. The rest of the horses had went back down the hill so I walked down there and took a few photos before I headed for home.