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.