Nearly Perfect Ride

We had a farrier appointment on Tuesday so I ran out to the barn and left the baby with Jeff for a while. He was set up with a bottle but it's nicer if we don't have to waste a bottle so they try and wait until I get back. I thought Jeff had plans on Wednesday so when J suggested we go riding I didn't think I'd be able to. Well Jeff's plans changed and he offered that I go out to the barn and ride. So I met J at the barn and we took Cody and Steele down the rode. Nancy couldn't ride this week so I took her place ;) Cody was pure gold. I haven't had a ride like that on him in ages. He was calm, didn't need a lot of coaxing to leave the property, and went the same speed home as he did leaving the barn. We went south in the drainage ditch between cornfields and then ventured a bit further south than we usually go. Other than snatching grass every chance he had, Cody was a saint. He had a few tiny starts at the boogie men in the corn and needed to play catch up a few times since Steele walks quite a bit faster but it was great. Even during our little catch up trots he was calm and smooth. It's so nice riding a horse like that. I wish he was like that when he was alone but I'll take what I can get, who likes to trail ride alone anyways? I'm trying to schedule a time for the vet to come out and inject Axel's knee again. I'm hoping that helps enough for him to do an easy trail ride this fall if my trailer gets finished and brought down here. If it doesn't help him this time around then Mr. Axel might be looking at retirement at least from riding until Daniel is big enough to ride. I was trying to think of what I can do with Axel this winter if we're not riding. I was thinking of maybe clicker training him to do some tricks. Of course we can't work on bowing but there's gotta be some other tricks we could do. Maybe picking up items from the ground, he's already too mouthy, maybe we could put it to good use.

On my own

Back out to the barn last night. This time on my own. I decided to take Cody for a spin since it had been so long. He was, of course, the same as he usually is for me, uninterested in leaving the property. We worked in the ditch, back and forth, in front of the property. There was some fighting, a bit of cantering, and some crow hopping. You know, the usual. we ended by doing some trotting and a bit of wrong-lead cantering in the arena.

I jumped on Axel bareback in the arena for a few laps. He's still pretty "off" especially in the deep footing. I'm hoping next week we can get back out on the road with friends for a ride. If only I could get him to eat all his bute, he'd sure feel better as would I. Both boys had fly masks on but Cody had one ear out the side and one ear out the forelock hole. When I was done riding him I put his mask back on and put him in the pasture. By the time I was done with Axel (a whopping 15 minutes I'm sure), he had an ear out of the fly mask already.

Bath Time

I went out again last week to ride but poor Axel had other ideas. He looked good when I brought him into the barn. I groomed and tacked him up and we headed down the road with Cody and Steele but before we even got past the property it was evident that he wasn't feeling too great. I got off to see if he'd walk it off but he wasn't even putting his full weight on that sore leg. So not knowing if he'd go completely lame or what we decided to turn around and head back. Cody and Steele kept going to have a nice ride in the drainage ditches.

Since it was pretty hot out and the horses had been sweating just standing in their pasture I decided to use my time to give Axel a little bit of a bath. I didn't use soap but I hosed him down really well and even scrubbed and clipped up his back feet. I say every year I'm going to try and preemptively combat the mud fever but I never get around to it. So this is the first step in that. If I can keep them cleaned up before it hits maybe I can keep it away by keep some MTG on him. When the gals got back from their ride they hosed off the other horses before turning them out. Of course Cody went for a nice roll in the arena, good thing we didn't use soap, I bet it felt good though!