It's Almost Winter

Okay it's not really almost winter but it's getting darker, colder, and the horses are starting to shed their summer coats and put on their winter wear. I'm not quite as concerned about it this year since I have a lit arena to ride in. Sure the cold is no fun but at least the complete lack of sunlight won't put a damper on some riding.

I rode Cody in his new headstall on Tuesday. It seems to fit well and stayed on his head. We worked on some trotting and a tiny bit of canter transition. I attempted some rollbacks on the rail, which to my surprised got me a few little canter departs. I'm not sure what inspired him, if he's done rollbacks before or what because I was only really asking for a trot. After that I asked for a canter on the rail and got a lot more willing transition than usual. Wrong lead to the one direction but he wasn't speed trotting into it at least. So maybe rollbacks are a good exercise for him. It was also a nice exercise in stopping when asked since there was a nice finite element to each pass.

Axel lunged pretty sound so I rode him for a while as well. Perhaps he was just sore from needing his feet done. We mostly walked, did some bending, and I worked on seat aids. We did a minor amount of trotting but he was not terribly excited about that situation. I probably need to start trotting more and more, he's had so much time off and I've been babying him lately, but the foot is excellent in the arena, he's on supplements and I just picked up some MSM to add to what he's getting now, and I could add some bute when I ride. The poor fat horse just needs to get out and move more.

We have a new adventure planned for next Wednesday (assuming I get signed up). We're going to head out to Cornerstone and try out a beginning cattle clinic. Jeff is going to ride Axel and I'll ride Cody. I think A is bringing Danny or maybe even Vinnie who knows. I'm excited to see how the boys do on cattle with the thought that we'll try and work some cows at the farm and also maybe get in on the Gary cattle drive sometime. There's a lot of trailer fixing to do this weekend, cattle clinic Wednesday, and the We Can Ride trail ride a week from Sunday. So much going on!