What a Day

Well it was quite a day at the barn. If you're a horse person you know how to *not* make plans because they will never work out in the end. If this narrative seems a little random and all over the place, that's just kind of how the day went anyway.

I brought Axel into the barn and put him in a stall with a bucket of some treats, feed, an apple, and some bute. I wanted to see if some bute would make him move a little better and be less cranky about life when I rode. Since I wanted the bute to kick in I thought he could stay in the stall and get used to it for a while and I'd go get Cody. Danny wasn't in the pasture as he was at a parade so it was a good time to get both the boys in the barn at once since leaving Cody alone wouldn't make him very happy. Axel was doing pretty well in the stall, ate his little snack, and knickered loudly as Cody and I came in. Cody was mildly on edge but was doing pretty well. I groomed him in the crossties and took him into the arena to do a little ground work and decide what to do next.

Axel stayed pretty quiet while I worked Cody. That was the end of the calmness. The new boarder arrived and all hell broke loose. I tied Cody in the barn while I chatted with the new people. It was a good lesson for him to stand there. He screamed a bit, I suppose he knew there was another horse in the barn and he wanted to see what the deal was. Axel was doing pretty well with all the commotion, lots of things to look at. The longer we stood there the more he started pawing in the stall. I threw a saddle on Cody and rode around a little and he did pretty well. When the new boarder brought in her very very pretty Arab mare Cody wasn't so interested in anything I had to say. I tied him back up and untacked. I figured he'd be alright in the arena watching the new girl. He ended up working up a pretty good sweat so I put the cooler on him. I decided to swap Cody and Axel and maybe ride Axel. I tied Cody in the stall so he wouldn't lay down in the blanket.

Axel had worked himself into a sweaty mess at this point and rolled several times in the arena while I walked him around. Between bucking in the stall, bucking while tied up to the arena wall, and acting quite worked up about the whole deal I decided riding wasn't in our future for the day. I did get out the real lunge line and lunged him a bit. It was more like Axel just speeding around like a demon and not so much lunging. But he cantered in both directions on the correct leads. As idiotic as he got on the lunge line he's always willing to halt (and walk towards me which I don't like). So now I had two sweaty horses, Axel took care of himself pretty well by rolling but Cody just got sweatier by worrying in the stall. There wasn't much I could do at that point so I turned them both out. Axel just rolled in the snow. It was sunny so I figured they would just find a warm spot and dry off.

No videos from today, just too much going on. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow. The new boarders mare is absolutely a dream. Through this whole ordeal she was quiet, well mannered, and just plain nice. They were riding her and she was never out of control or interested in other things, she just plugged along like a good little horse. So jealous!