Another Day Another Bit

Another nice day for riding this week. Wouldn't you know, I pull into the driveway and all the horses (okay, not Gunner) are standing around lazily in the paddock. As soon as I get my stuff out of the car and get my boots on, they've all decided to walk down the hill. They must know I need the exercise. Axel did decide to stay near the barn and see what I was up to. I picked on some of his scabs for awhile, he's still got some nasty mud fever even after the wet is gone. I sprayed him with Betadine but he wasn't too happy about it so he started to head for the hills as well. I went to see how close everyone was and if I could whistle and get them to come back. Axel was maybe 10 feet from me on his way down when I whistled. He turns and looks at me, and then decides I must be whistling for him so he turns around to come back to me. Goofy horse. Of course no one else came running, probably didn't hear me, I can't whistle very well.

Tricia arrived so we went down to fetch Cody, Kiko, and Kalani. Steph made it down and manned the gates for us. We groomed and tacked and all that good stuff. It's looking like I need an additional pad for Cody. His saddle is starting to get closer and closer to his withers. Ideally I'd have a couple nice contoured wool pads but they're pretty spendy so I'll have to use what I have for now. I also got a few different bits from Steph to try on Cody. We ended up trying a low port, short shanked, aluminum bit. The last one we tried was mullen and possibly put too much pressure on his tongue. He seemed pretty okay with our newest choice but we'll see after a few tries. It seems like it might be a bit narrow but both Tricia and Steph thought it looked alright.

I might need to take some western riding classes so I can learn how to neck rein. I feel a little out of control trying to ride with a super loose rein. Overall it went well. Steph got back on Kalani and he was just fine and Kiko was a rockstar as usual. Cody was really calm for most of the ride. We walked down the big hill, Cody leading, and he went slow and even stopped at the bottom of the hill (usually he wants to run). We decided to go back up the big hill. Kalani went first. I held Cody back thinking maybe we'd run up but we didn't really have space to start. But I barely even thought about asking him to move on and he just bolted up the hill. I'm surprised I don't have a cantle shaped bruise on my rear end. After that stunt he was a little worked up. Granted we were heading back in the direction of home so that might have had more to do with it.

We stopped in the clearing to do some schooling. Cody was much better than last time. He doesn't quite understand the point of going in a circle and staying on the circle instead of cutting in to get right behind another horse. But he was doing good. And I am getting better letting him have his head and using leg to steer. We even managed some left turns away from the group and the barn (left is our bad side). I did make one mistake on the way back. I thought I'd cut through a short cut and no one followed me, Cody realized it and spun around as fast as he could (we might have to teach him spins and rollbacks!). That and the usual dance up the last hill on the way home. No worries, we'll keep working on it.