Long Time No See

It's only been over a week since I've been out to see Cody and Axel and in that time Axel has turned black once again as his winter coat is starting to grow in. Cody is getting all the white fuzz on his belly and between his back legs. Winter is almost here! When I was in Maine last week I got an email from Patti stating that Axel was sore again and lumpy. He's always been lumpy from what I can tell so I wasn't too concerned. Last night he was still a bit sore but in retrospect I think he was stiff from not moving. And he was lumpy or his existing lumps were swollen. I cold hosed his foot for awhile to see if I could get the swelling down any. Axel enjoyed a snack in the lawn while holding his left rear foot high in the air to try and avoid the hose. When I was done he actually walked pretty well. I chose not to ride him and we're giving him 1g of bute for the next week to try and get the swelling down. Hopefully he'll be back to himself next week (and hopefully the beans will be out of the field so we can go for a canter).

Much to Cody's dismay I chose to ride him. I don't think Andrea has been out to ride in a while so I think he thinks he's on vacation. I decided I wasn't ready for a fight on the road if he was feeling ornery and I wasn't in the mood to mount and dismount a million times to move manure since one nasty neighbor has decided that manure doesn't belong on country dirt roads. So we went down the back hill instead. I mounted at the middle of the hill by the first stretchy gate. We got to where the trees start on the sandy part of the hill and began our circles. Cody didn't want to go in my direction and I didn't want to go back to the barn. After several circles and a couple failed attempts to go down the other hill we finally made it down to the bridge (all in the rope hackamore). We crossed the bridge and only had to do one or two circles on that side to get the right momentum to go up the hill. We trotted part way up the hill and then walked the rest. We had what was supposed to be a trot but turned into a canter in the meadow on the top of the hill. He wasn't totally with me as far as downward transitions up there so we did another loop and tried again and got a nice trot.

We did a few more various loops around that area and worked on "stand" near the hill to go home. That might have been a futile lesson. Down the hill went fine, crossed the bridge, went in the other direction back to the barn. But as soon as we got to the first part of the hill between the trees there was no walking to be had. We did one circle but it didn't really make a difference, Cody was in his "you think I'm walking but really it's a trot" gait. When we got to the last stretch of hill and he still wouldn't walk I thought "fine we'll trot up and then turn around and do it over and over until he walks." Well he thought "I'll canter gallop and buck and maybe she'll get off." (First time he's ever bucked with me on I might add). I did get off, and we did more circles at the top of the hill and changed directions over and over. Then we walked back down the hill where I remounted (shoulda done it at the top I suppose) and then we walked back up the hill.

At that point I decided the barn needed to be not such a nice place so we went out to the side pasture next to the barn and next to the rest of the herd and we rode out there. We trotted for a while, did some serpentines at the walk, tried at the trot but it was a little spastic. We even had some slightly faster than collected canters (no bucking). One of the canters he might have been disuniting which we noticed on the lunge last time so I stopped that. I dismounted away from the barn, led him around for a while to cool off, loosened his girth away from the barn, did some backing up through two bushes, and finally brought him back to the barn.

Will any of that stick? Probably not, but oh well. He was pretty good in the rope hack. He's very responsive to neck reining just also very stubborn to get back to the barn in the process. I don't think the ride would have been any better (or worse) with a bit and I don't think he would have listened to me any more with a bit. I think maybe the benefit of the rope hack with Cody is that now he doesn't have that bit or shank to pay attention to or try to eat constantly. So I'm hoping now he will listen to his rider more. Wishful thinking right?