Time for the Bean Field!

They've finally taken the beans out of the field near the ranch. I am pretty sure that as I was leaving last week they had the combine out and ready to go. Just bad timing on my part. Anyway we were finally able to ride in the field. First we started by testing Kalani with some scary items in the round pen. He's potentially going to go to one of the We Can Ride barns to be a trail horse for the owner as well as a therapy horse. We've done a lot of desensitizing type work with all the horses but it had been a while so we thought we better check it out and make sure he's sense was still intact. He did pretty good. His reaction to anything scary is to freeze. Which is a much better reaction for a therapy horse than to bolt. But he wasn't really scared of too much. We had hula hoops, pool noodles, balls, and the big blue tarp.

When that was all said and done we tacked up Axel and Kalani and went out to work in the bean field. I buted Axel again before we went, I think that will be habit as long as his foot is so swelled up. He was perfectly sound but there's no reason I shouldn't do everything in my power to keep him that way. We started the ride in the field with some serpentines. I still tend to exaggerate my seat cues but it's good to see how just those seat cues cause Axel to pay attention and switch the direction he's bending. Then we went for a canter on a straight line. Axel had a really nice vertical right lead canter. Not collected but very light which is rare for the big lazy guy. No bucking or flinging his head down to the ground.

Kalani was quite riled up though after not having been schooled in so long. Axel wasn't terribly happy with any ideas to trot much. We did a little but going to the left he was quite unhappy about. Partly sore I'm sure and partly just cranky that he hasn't had to work in so long and now he's out of shape. Bending to the left is not our strong suit and I couldn't get a big enough circle to make him happy he just wanted to veer off and canter home. I even got a few pretty impressive bucks out of him when asking for a trot. Several times he offered up a canter but we were going left and he likes the right lead so that never works out too well. Near the end of our schooling we went for a trot on a straight line which he was perfectly willing and happy to do. Then a canter in which I asked for the left lead, got the left lead quite easily, then got a bit of the head diving but was able to pull that up (should have squeezed him through it a bit more but Kalani was behind us thinking we were leaving and having a bit of a fit). So overall I rated it 1.5 good canters for the evening. Really the fact that he picked up that left lead on a straight line is pretty impressive for Axel. He's no dummy when it comes to cues and what they mean, he would just prefer to go about his own business.

Cody lucked out and didn't have to do any work but I think Andrea rode this past weekend. The weird part is that I can tell when he gets ridden. When he hasn't been ridden in a while he'll walk away from me when I go out to see or get him. When he's been ridden he comes up to me to say hi and visit.