A Good Ride

I couldn't sit at the horse expo all weekend and not go see my own horses so I left the expo earlier today than planned and went out to the barn. Axel's face swelling is down a bit and he's still a little off on his front knee. I brought him into the barn and got him groomed up a bit. He still has some brown winter hair left that I haven't been able to get completely off. I wish the Furmanator wasn't so expensive. I didn't work on his scabs at all but it didn't look like he had any new ones so that's a good sign. I put him in the arena but forgot to put his bell boots on before I turned him loose and he took off like a bat out of hell. He was cantering and bucking and generally let loose. I was able to get his boots on when he stopped to say hi and before he went off running and bucking again. He kept slamming down on his front end both feet at the same time. By the time he was done letting loose he was limping pretty decent again. I lunged him for a few minutes but he didn't want to walk and trotting hurt so he'd bounce around and canter a bit. I tied him to the wall while J&J were talking to a farrier about Logan's shoes and he was fairly patient with that situation.

I grabbed Cody when Axel was done right as B was driving up. We groomed our horses and joined S and her friend in the arena. Cody was fairly well behaved in the arena with 3 other horses that he technically doesn't know. I spent a little time working on some lateral work against the wall. Cody doesn't completely get it but started to take some steps in the right direction. We played with the big green ball for a while but Cody doesn't like to push it and he started acting afraid of it and shying away from it. Diva really loves pushing the ball around, she's fun to watch. Eventually we set up a little jump and took all the horses over it. Cody did pretty well and jumped it after just stepping over it a few times. He even managed to ground tie when I got off to reset the jump. Of course all that good had to be followed up with something not so great, Cody decided to pee in the barn aisle when we were done riding so I had to get that all cleaned up so it wouldn't stink. Hopefully I got it washed off good enough.

Picked up all the vaccines at the expo this weekend so I have to give those sooner than later and I need to pick up some de-wormer as well. Plus Axel will have his last Adequan shot tomorrow for the month. I talked to the chiropractor that the vet recommended at the expo and I'll have to give him a call sooner than later and have him adjust Cody.

A lot of luck

It is a great surprise that I don't hurt more than I do today. Last night's ride was quite the interesting one. It started out innocent enough. I brought in Axel and Kalani after watching them run up the hill to the barn. Axel has some how gotten himself a weird scab under his chest right where those two muscles line up to a "V" right behind the girth. Presumably he scraped himself with his foot getting up from laying down. In any case it apparently really itches and he really enjoyed me rubbing on it.

Tricia brought Oly over and we decided, since it's getting dark at 8pm now, going to the trail would be more hassle than it's worth. We tacked everyone up, did our best to get past the rest of the heard with Oly, and went down the back hill to ride in the meadow. Steph wanted to school Kalani at the canter and Axel needed a bit of that as well. The circle we ended up making was a little less than ideal, there was a pile of branches we had to jump over with each circle. It wasn't really big enough to have to jump but Axel must have thought that was good fun. More than once we jumped it and cantered out of it. He actually offered up the canter himself quite a few times. I still have a hard time riding his trot in a field like that, I never know where his feet are going (nor does he) and his strides are all uneven and bumpy but we managed alright. I think Steph even got at least one canter out of Kalani after a series of his cow kicking.

As we were schooling on top the hill Patti showed up on Daley for a ride so we decided to follow her through the woods and whatnot. She took the short cut down the hill and was going to go up the big hill. She asked what we wanted to do and everyone thought cantering was fine. Axel has been know to buck up that hill this year so supposedly I was ready for it. Well he bucked, and bucked, and bucked. And usually he gets tired and stops midway through the hill. Right about the time I expected him to get tired, I lost my stirrup and my balance and started falling forward. He kept going and I ended up staying on but had a huge pile of mane in my hand by the time I regained control. How I stayed on I'm not quite sure. I recall yelling, "I'm good I'm good" as I probably looked like I was about to end up on the ground.

After that portion of the ride Oly started acting the fool trying to scratch on the trees (turned out he had an itch under his saddle). He ended up acting like an idiot until we got back down across the bridge. Prior to that we went for a canter in the meadow on the straightaway. I figured after the hill bucking I needed to get some sort of good canter out of Axel. Daley lead and Axel followed close behind and it was a really nice calm canter. Right as I was pulling Axel up beside Daley so we could stop before the ground dipped, Daley spooked and jumped sideways towards us so Axel jumped sideways as well, he kept cantering and almost lost me a second time. Patti and I both managed to stay on even after loosing our stirrups and probably looking quite ridiculous. Steph lost her sunglasses while cantering and Oly tried to jump over them. So all in all it was probably quite the site. I decided that after 2 saves like that my luck may have run out and I needed to head back to the barn just in case.

After removing Oly's saddle twice on the way back down he finally started acting like a normal horse, we still aren't sure what his deal was there was nothing on him but he apparently itched like mad. I decided we needed one more canter up the sand hill so Axel cantered up, really well I might add and then Steph and Kalani followed. Tricia and Patti went around the opposite way and we met up at the middle of the hill. So 2 almost falls, 1 horrible bucking fit, and 2 good canters. We're hoping the trail ride on Sunday goes a lot better.