Good Day

All Around! And Three Under Saddle

The deer flies seem to be gone in the woods, though the mosquitoes linger.

I took Toby out for a nice little hack. He seems to think stopping to eat grass is what a trail ride is all about now, but in his semi-retirement at age 17, I figure he deserves a snack on the way. The woods was lovely, and the footing good, but we stuck to the walk except for one tiny little incline Toby decided needed a canter to negotiate. *lol*

Next up was Tucker. I schooled him in the arena for two sessions again--the second one pretty short. He only barely offered one balk and quickly moved out of it. I was able to make a lot of half halt rebalancings without any kind of problem at all.

I do have to do some extra work on the right canter lead at the moment as he wants to go on his forehand more, but today I did a lot of square corners getting him to lift his shoulder over and rock back on his hind leg and they really helped the balance.

Schooling done, I took him out on a hack as well and he was perfectly behaved. I was delighted.

I had planned on riding Chance for about five minutes in the arena before going out into the woods, but he was so quiet, I just headed out instead. We had a grand little ride. Near the end where the trail heads back for home, he practically pulled me off in another direction, so we took the dirt road that leads to where my grandmother's house used to stand. Right now, it's just a ride up, turn around and come back, but I think just a little clearing will get a new trail through to the path back to the barn.

Regardless, Chance thought it all was great fun and when he heard the rooster crow in the pen in back of my neighbor's house he stopped and tried to go over to see what all the noise was about. He is the most curious, adventurous horse I've had in a while.

Claire, Tucker has had a lot of ground work, round penning, etc. with a John Lyons trainer. Going back to that is another option I've considered. For now, I seem to be able to ride him out of it, but don't think it hasn't occurred to me as something we might need to do again.