Horses are Dangerous

No pictures, cuz the mud.  So much mud.  Anyway, horses are dangerous, I tell ya.  I can hardly use my right arm since my last visit to the barn.  I put Cody in the arena so he could roll and then I scraped a pile of hair off him before tacking him up.  I decided to grab my dressage whip since Cody has lacked a little inspiration lately.  And here's where things got dangerous. I stood Cody at the mounting block, reins in my left hand, whip in my right.  I transferred the whip to just a few fingers and then used the remaining fingers on my right hand to grab the mounting block and move it closer.  The mounting block is homemade, two by sixes, pretty heavy, and apparently the remaining free fingers on my right hand are not strong enough to move the block and I pulled a muscle in my forearm.  Ug.  So yeah, I'm a wimp.

Free lunged Cody first to get him moving, left lead canter just about every time he was asked.  Rode for about a half hour.  Not a spectacular ride.  I think I need to step back and work with him on just responding when asked.  We're stuck in a catch 22.  He's reluctant, I nag, he tries everything but what I really want, I nag more, he's more reluctant.  Rinse, repeat.  So we might have gotten a left lead canter, it was hard to tell. When I got off I lunged him to the left and got the correct lead so that was our stopping point.

I keep thinking, "I can't wait til we get a new horse to work with and Cody can retire" but I really do need to keep him in shape so I can ride him while Daniel rides Haji.  But it'll be a whole new set of issues to tackle once we move him to a new location so I guess for now I just keep him in shape and keep working on his confidence and anxiety.  Looking forward to a few rides down the road when the new horse arrives, I just hope he rides out with a new horse as well as he did with his BFF Steele.

Cody to the Left

Last time I made it out to the barn to ride I met Cody in the pasture taking a nap. That old horse has come a long way since I've bought him. A few years ago there's no way he would have let me walk up to him in the pasture while he slept let alone sit on his back like I did the other day. After I hung out with him for a few minutes, took a bunch of pictures, and annoyed him to the best of my abilities I finally put the halter on him and he reluctantly got up.

I wanted to set up a series of poles to work on turns on the haunches and forehand but we don't have quite enough poles in the barn and they aren't very long so my pattern was a little small. We did walk through it a few times but next time I'll have to make it bigger and probably video tape the session so I can see what he's doing. I tried to work him to the left as much as possible since that's the direction he has the most trouble with. He really hollows out and counter bends going left and doesn't pick up that lead of course. I thought maybe the chiropractic adjustment would help a bit but even on the lunge he wouldn't get that left lead. Back to the drawing board I guess. One good thing that came out of it was that I'm more comfortable with the old boy. It always felt like he got so worked up after one attempt at cantering but after watching Nancy ride and seeing how not worked up he really was something must have clicked for me and now it doesn't feel like he's freaking out nearly as much. So I guess one thing at a time.

Pthththththth

Axel looked a bit better tonight but once he got moving a bit in the arena he started getting sore on that knee. I'm going to stop at Fleet Farm tomorrow and see if I can find some natural rubber gloves and then try some of the DMSO on his knee. I bought the wrong kind of gloves when I originally got the DMSO so I haven't gotten around to trying it and seeing how he'd react to it. I picked a second wood tick of the season off Axel today. Guess it's time to get out the bug spray.

Despite the tornado like winds Cody was super calm in the aisle while I groomed though he started in with the yawning when I got the saddle on him. He was even too calm in the arena and just did not want to move. J had Dolly in the arena again and he followed her around to the right with no issues other than being lazy. Once again to the left he was uncooperative. Next time we start to the left and see how that goes. Part of it could be the need for chiropractic adjustment but part of it I think is him wanted to keep his right eye on what's going on but can't do that when he's going left. He doesn't understand why he can't just stand and watch other horses work. After Dolly left we stayed in the arena and actually got a decent walk for a little while and tried to work on turn on the haunches again. I dismounted and untacked him and then asked for an extended trot and canter at liberty. He'd go right okay but would swap leads and directions when he was going to the left. I really have to get that chiropractor appointment but B wants to wait til June and I would have to wait til this session of WCR is over first anyway.