Jeff and I went out for a ride yesterday. It was pretty windy out so maybe that was the reason all the horses were acting like goofs. Or maybe it was the warm weather, spring fever. The horses in the pasture were running through the mud puddles and bucking and kicking. As a matter of fact, so were Cody and Axel, while we were riding them!
I was in the tack room looking for the weight tape and Jeff was out in the pasture with Axel. I guess he decided to go for a little ride before we got the tack out. I came out to see him riding around on Axel bareback with no halter or bridle. We all think Axel isn't the smartest horse out there but I think maybe he's got more going on in his head than we give him credit for. He went straight for a low branched tree and brushed Jeff off his back right onto the ground. So that just started the day off on a good foot!
We groomed and saddled up and went out to the road. Axel proceeded to trot around into the ditch while Cody had his own little freak out circling around. We decided it must be the wind or something but neither horse would calm down. We just went back and forth on the road right in front of the pasture trying to calm them down. Cody kept sticking his tongue out and avoiding the bit so I finally got off and loosened his curb chain. That seemed to calm him down quite a bit but he was still a bit agitated. The rule was as soon as we walked calmly down the road and back we'd stop. Axel decided he didn't want to wait and started bucking like crazy. It was actually pretty entertaining to watch but I don't think Jeff felt the same way being the one on the horse.
We did make it down the road and back calmly after that. I'm afraid that now that Cody's moved up to #2 in the herd he's even more herd bound than before. But since all the horses were having issues it was probably just the wind.
Anyways ... after that we brought Beau in and took off his rug so he could roll. I brushed him and measured him with the weight tape. He's about 959Lbs according to the tape. Condsidering his age and all that that seems like a pretty decent weight. He's similiar to Cody and only 200Lbs lighter. Cody came up at 1111Lbs and Axel was at a whopping 1350Lbs. Without moving him to more level ground I remeasured his height, still at 16 or even 16.1hh. We wanted to confirm that since Noah at We Can Ride measures at 15.3hh and we didn't believe that Axel could be taller.
