Goofing Around

Of course I forgot to take any photos last night but here's a nice one of Axel from last week that I hadn't posted yet. When I got to the barn B was just riding Diva in the arena, she suggested we head down the road a bit. So I grabbed Axel and got him ready as fast as I could leaving a bit of time to scratch some of his bug bites that itched. We made it down to the cows with Axel keeping a pretty decent pace, though trying to grab grass the whole trip. Diva wasn't so sure about the cows and positioned herself behind Axel while they looked on. I still want to take Axel and Cody to a cow clinic sometime.

When we got back to the barn we watched A load up Vinny and head out to her formation practice and then went back to the arena and goofed around. We trotted a bit and cantered. Axel canted more than he usually does so that was a win for him. Diva gets really strong in her plain eggbutt snaffle so B was working on that a bit. We tried some rollbacks and we worked on some lateral stuff which didn't go very far with Axel. We discussed jumping on the horses bareback and how exactly to go about that task. So we untacked and gave it a try. I can jump up on my belly from the mounting block but that's about it for now. B thought she needed a chair but she managed to get up on Diva with just the mounting block. So we rode around on our sweaty horses bareback for a while. I attempted an "around-the-world" for the first time. I tried to kneel on Axel's back vaulting style but he's not quite big enough for me to do that. One thing I did discover, okay two things, he backs up much better with just the lead rope than with a bit, and he understands the lateral cues a bit better with no saddle. He managed to do a turn on the forehand in one direction. So we have some winter projects lined up: bareback lateral moves. When we were done goofing off like kids and our butts had soaked up all the horse's back sweat it was time to call it a night. But not before Axel did his "rolling on command" trick. Okay so he doesn't do it on command but when he lays down to roll I've been saying "roll" and then praising him as he does it. Maybe it'll work the other way around one day.