Long Time No See

I got the best horsey welcome last night when I went to the barn. Cody, of all horses, knickered at me like I was his long lost BFF. And it wasn't even close to dinner time so who knows why he was so excited to see me but it was nice anyway.

I groomed Axel first while the barn owner was riding one of her horses. Axel has a few good sized welts from I assume bug bites. His chin doesn't look too bad but he still has the flap of skin/hair hanging from it (not as bad as it sounds it's mostly just hair). It's too big to pull off and I couldn't bring myself to cut it. Hopefully it'll just fall off soon. Apparently Axel was itchy all over. Usually you can find a spot or two that really makes him happy to have scratched. Yesterday it was nearly every place I brushed; full on lip curling and neck stretching. Goofy horse. When the barn owner was finished in the arena Axel and I went in and worked on some lunging. He was a little excited and trotted out pretty quickly but none of the previous bucking. He put his head down a bit at the canter but nothing major hopefully just stretching. To his bad side he actually lunged without a fight. He was a little jumpy on that side and kept offering canter strides to get out of trotting. We worked a while on getting the canter on the correct lead on that side. He even did a flying change. We did once more on each side, got both correct leads and stopped there. I'm trying to teach him that being nice and lunging correctly means we're done. Of course I don't know what I'll do when he picks up those leads calmly and correctly on the first try! Of course then I suppose my standards move up to collection and using his hind end properly. We backed out of the barn and that was the end of that.

Cody wasn't terribly happy that Axel had left, I suppose now it's been a week or more since I took one of them away and he got used to it. I didn't have too many plans for Cody, just a bit of grooming so we went to the crossties and got that done. His nose still seems sun burn free. It's a little flakey which he wasn't too happy to have me brush. He was, however, pleased to have my curry his head. I put his fly mask back on when I turned him out but I'm seeing now it's not sunny at all today so he probably would have appreciated not wearing it for a change. Oh well. Pink nose horses have to put up with it if they don't let me put sun screen on them.