2 Rides in 1 Day

Made it back out to the barn today with a lot more time on my hands so my intention was to at least ride Axel. It was a lot colder out than they originally predicted for Sunday but Axel was warm standing in the sun. The advantages of being a black horse, I guess.

1. Relax in barn/arena - he managed to stand in the crossties fairly patiently. For some reason as soon as he tries once to move and gets stopped by the lead he gets pissed off and keeps trying and flinging his head around only causing more pulling by the ropes. I haven't quite figured out what he thinks he's going to accomplish but I'm trying to time un-clipping him for when he's standing quiet. He had a couple starts from the snow sliding off the roof but no run-offs.
   
2. Relax in stall
3. Back off trailer
4. Lunge 3 gaits
5. Move out - we worked a bit on moving out at the walk and for once he didn't take those cues to mean trot, so I think that was a success.
   
6. Use haunches - we made our first attempts to work on the turn on the forehand. I can't tell if he's using his back legs properly so I'm looking forward to getting my new video camera. But at least it was a start trying to get him to understand that I was asking for a turn in place. We worked on bending and serpentines as well, I figured if he can move off my leg and seat in that respect it'll only help our other work.
   
7. Canter both leads

I still mean to stand out near the pasture and work with Cody but the wind was like ice despite the sun so I wimped out and brought him into the barn hoping that he wouldn't be as worked up as he was last time.

1. Relax in barn/arena - he stood in the crossties fairly calmly. After I picked out his feet he must have stepped on a piece of the snow and slipped because he was parked out and afraid to move at that point.
   
2. Relax in stall - when we were done working I brought him into a stall and gave him an apple. He was a little preoccupied with the smells in the stall but didn't seem scared about it.
   
3. Pay attention to handler - we did our usual lunging and backing and a little bit of standing still and paying attention. He wasn't vibrating like he had in the past but he's still not paying me total attention. The snow was sliding off the roof making some loud noises which startled him a few times but he handled it well.
   
4. Lunge 3 gaits - he's starting out a walk now which is nice, he used to go right to the trot even when I asked for a walk. He wasn't too happy to canter and threw a minor fit about it but came back down to earth after one lap.
   
5. Gain confidence with rider - we worked with just the rope halter and lead and a saddle. He was very interested in the gate and kept trying to head in that direction. He's fairly responsive to leg cues and my inexperienced neck reining. I wanted him to halt facing the opposite wall of the gate and he wanted to turn around so we played that game for quite a while. When I finally got a decent halt I dismounted. There was some more attempts to turn around as I was un-tacking in that same spot so I put the saddle back on and moved him around until he stopped facing away from the gate and finally removed the saddle then.
   
6. Load and unload