Tucker Takes A Turn

Glorious Weather Day!

It was cool, breezy sunny and beautiful this morning. With low humidity, it was stunning change from the last week or so.

I fed the Boys first this time, waited for breakfast to digest, and then went out to ride Tucker

We worked in the arena for a bit over a half hour. The first part was a longish warmup on a fairly long rein, just asking him to go foward and do a bit of bending for suppling. We did a few canter trot canter transitions, some leg yield and some circles. He was relaxed and well behaved.

The second part of the session--shorter in time--I gathered him up on the bit and challenged him with some half pass at the trot and canter. We also worked a little on half halt hesitations to get him a little lighter in front. I had a lot of weight in the rein for the most part, a result of his not really being in shape to carry himself, so I did the hesitations to rebalance him, then trotted off again until he started to get heavy, half halted, and repeated the exercise.

I did this on both reins. The right rein was actually easier, but towards the end he did try to rush off a little, so I suspect he was getting tired. I asked for just a little longer, and then let him stretch down to relax his back and cool down.

His nose went to the ground. Full stretch down with no prompting from me.

Back in the barn, he got his obligatory carrot, a nice sponging off and freedom to spend the rest of the day doing important horse things.

Today, that seemed to be grazing in the pasture. The rain has brought a little grass and to everyone's delight, there were no bugs about.

I poo picked the riding arena.

Later, I went out for an hour's walk. I had the Iphone GPS with me but did not log on until I was already up to the tree farm. As near as I can estimate, my total walk was a bit over a mile and a half. Next time I'll remember to load the app before I leave the house.

It was a perfect weather day to exercise. Wish the pool had been open. That would have been the perfect ending to the activities.

Ah, well, sometime next week it will be open full time.

Hard to wait in the meantime.