Back in the Saddle Part 3

Finally a sunny day but after all the rain I didn't want to risk the ground being really soft or slippery in the corn field so I stuck with the arena. Plus Wednesdays I don't have a whole lot of time and it's easy to loose track. Axel was surprisingly not that muddy considering. I suppose laying down in the mud while it rains for 4 days isn't exactly on the top of his list. I ended up scraping off what I thought was dried mud but turned out to be a scab/dried skin/scar tissue. So I had to tend to a bleeding coronary band for a bit. Luckily it was pretty minor and didn't bleed for more than a minute.

He didn't seem terribly glad to be saddled but into the arena we went. J had taken Amigo out on the road so I had some room and lunged Axel for a bit. He was pretty calm about life, really just wanted to look at the horses in the pasture. There were some minor head flips but no bucking when he was asked to trot. He moved pretty well, a little off now and then but pretty good. I stopped with the trotting, still trying to take it a little easy.

We rode at the walk for quite a while, he was kind of cranky, nothing major just a little fidgety. I finally asked for a trot and it was slow going at first, lots of stopping but he eventually picked it up and trotted pretty well. We did a lot of walking between trotting and we stuck mostly to going to the right. For obvious reasons he doesn't like when I post the correct diagonal to the left. We walked around for quite a while and even had some nice rein back before calling it a day.

I'm still hesitant to really start working. He's had 1 week off completely and 2 weeks of real mellow hand walking or easy riding in the arena. I really want to go for a canter down the field but I should probably hold off a bit longer. Even though when he trots he walks out of it sound and he tends to choose the canter over trotting when he is sore. We'll see, I could give him some bute before we go I suppose to take off the edge. It's Cody's turn next anyway so perhaps I'll just get my cantering fix with him.