Tuesday I made another trip to the barn by myself. I was happy to see everyone inside the fence when I arrived. I watched for a few minutes as Axel got chased around and then chased some other horses around, looking quite sound the whole time. So I grabbed his halter and went to fetch him. I wanted to see if the other side of the paddock/pasture was dry enough to ride in so we walked around a bit down there. As soon as Axel got a whiff of my plans to do some schooling type work he decided he was slightly lame again. I noted his mellow dramatic act and went to groom and tack him up anyway. I threw a gram of bute in a bucket with a scoop of feed and grabbed an apple. I figured even if he's faking it some bute will do him some good after the ride. He actually ate the powdered bute like a champ and licked his bucket clean. I decided instead to ride down the road again. The beans are still not out of the nearby fields so we were stuck on the gravel. We only took a short trip and had one little spot of trotting. He was sound the whole time of course. It was quite a big trot on Axel's standards I was surprised he had so much energy for once.
When I returned I decided that Cody needed some work in the round pen. I ended up starting at liberty with a whip to try and work in keeping him on the outside of the circle and not cutting in. He does pretty well without a lunge line but likes to forget that he needs to turn to the inside and not the outside. We worked a little on the canter as he's been disuniting a lot. I made some feeble attempts at lateral work but I just haven't found something to click with on that task. Cody's shining moment was lunging at liberty, I asked him to halt and then back up, all of which he did on the rail with me in the center and only giving him verbal cues. He really is a smart cookie I just have to figure out how to tap into that.
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