Cody's Confinement

I pulled up to the barn this afternoon and noticed that the new horse (horse owned by a friend of the barn owner's) was in the front paddock with the goofy paint gelding and the black and white paint mare. Looking further I see that Cody is in the middle paddock, by himself. I can see some other horses off in the distance in one of the back pastures. Cody was screaming his head off and not a happy horse. I was wondering what was going on. Jason was around so I chatted with him for a while. I guess he had just put out Amigo and Steele with Cody, Axel, and Danny. There was some fireworks and Cody gave it to Steele pretty bad. So they decided to put Cody by himself and give the rest of the herd a chance to get settled. The other four were getting along well when I got there. There was a few squeals still happening but very minor and all talk.

I grabbed Cody and brought him into the barn. I groomed pretty quickly because Cody was having a fit in the crossties. He did show me that his issue is not with the bit. Clearly his gaping mouth issue and probably the tongue over the bit issue is some sort of anxiety thing. I took a quick video if it with my phone if anyone wants to offer some suggestions on what to do to get him over this.

I took him into the arena to get his feet moving and hopefully get his attention back to me and off of the fact that his herd was far away. We did some circling and worked on keeping on the outside of the circle and not drifting in. Lots of changing directions to make sure he was paying attention to me. For the first time we worked on Cody circling around me with me stationary like you see all the NH types do. He was confused at first and when he got around to my back he wanted to stop and switch directions so we worked through that. You could tell he was concentrating more, his trot got slower and more thoughtful while he tried to figure out what it was that I wanted. We worked a little bit on some turns on the forehand and haunches, mostly just working on responding to pressure. I also lunged him on the real lunge line just to get him moving out a bit and to get a canter. He wasn't very willing to canter this time but we managed.

I did try some standing still focus type work but if his feet weren't moving he wasn't paying attention to me. I saddled him, mounted very easily and we rode around the arena. I grabbed another bridle from my stash, this one is a sort of loose ring with a curved mouthpiece and copper inlays. I might stick with this bit or one like it, I can still neck rein if I want to but when I need to I can direct rein and not cause issues. He actually did well in this bit so far. There was some gaping mouth issues, I'm not sure if he ever got his tongue over the bit or not but if he did he put it back. We did a lot of walking, bending around the corner, staying on the "rail." We did circles in every corner, worked on getting that bend right and keeping the circle nice and round. I added in some serpentine and concentrated on not nagging with the reins but using my seat and legs. We trotted a little, not nearly as controlled as the walk but acceptable. In the end it was a very good ride despite the distractions. And we got to foot-print up the arena that Jason had just gotten done dragging. :)

I put Cody back in his little detention which was difficult to do as he looked longingly to the other boys in the pasture. He went over to the horses in the front pasture and called to them. One of the mares came up to see but was intercepted by the paint gelding who apparently felt threatened by Cody even through the fence. Usually Cody is pretty laid back as far as herd bosses go so I'm kind of surprised that he picked on Steele so bad. Hopefully his separation will help him get over the herd bound issue. I suppose his separation might make him a little more cooperative the next time they put him back in with Steele.

I grabbed Axel out of the pasture and we rode down the road for a while. Had a couple nice canters and generally just had a calm little ride. He seems to be getting along with the other horses really well. Steele squeals at him sometimes and paws but Axel just stands there. I'm thinking he might end up higher on the totem pole than usual. It seems like he enjoys being around some horses his same size. He was kind of tagging along with both Amigo and Steele and even though Steele seems to move Amigo around, it looked like Axel moved Steele. It'll be an interesting journey.