No More Circles

We finally broke out of the arena and went for a ride down the road with another boarder. I was early so I was going to groom and lunge and do some stuff with Axel but he had other ideas. I nearly had to carry him across the driveway to the barn, he was slow and sort of lame but I couldn't figure out what was hurting him. I groomed him and then took him into the arena to evaluate what was wrong with him. Actually in the arena he wasn't really lame. He walked on the lunge line and didn't seem lame. He might have been a tiny bit off on one of his front legs but I couldn't pick it out. I only asked him to trot once, he pitched his usual fit and then trotted on as sound as he usually is. So I thought maybe he's not feeling well, of course if he wasn't feeling well it had nothing to do with his appetite. He was more than willing to pig out on the grass. So who knows what is up with him. Probably just sore after his little stunt on Sunday. We'll see how he is tomorrow.

So my little plan to not ride Cody isn't working out too well. We did a bit of ground work first and then went to groom. The ride out away from the barn was painfully slow. When we got to the first turn we trotted quite a ways and that seemed to snap Cody out of his barn sour funk. Of course the trip back was much faster, less fighting, and generally just a better ride. We passed the driveway on the way home and then my next plan was to back down the driveway. We only manged to get a little ways but at that point we had been sitting at the bottom of the drive fighting. He backed a little then would refuse. Finally I got a good 4-5 steps backwards so I called that good. We'll keep working on it, I think he'll get it after a while. Especially when he realizes backing down the driveway means we're done and we're home.