Three Again

On a Beautiful Day!

Perfect weather. Just cool enough and sunny.

I took Toby out for a short hack. Nothing special, but he just loves to browse on the laurel bushes along the trail. He had a nice big fat carrot when we got home.

Schooled Tucker for a good session in the arena. Canter on both leads was just fine. I even advanced to some walk/canter transitions. Since he didn't fuss about the departs I am now guessing the trouble yesterday was his anticipating pain rather than feeling pain. Still, I will take it easy with him. We did a little canter half pass. The angle was really shallow, but he didn't seem to mind. We had a few stops as he questioned me, but nothing serious.

When I'd gotten on him, he, like Chance headed for the gate to the woods, so after the school we had a nice little hack. He seemed quite happy about that.

I took Chance out for a bit longer hack. I'd planned to go even farther, but as I topped the ridge to the little lake, we heard voices. Sure enough there were three male riders coming up from around the lake. This is really the first time Chance has encountered other horses out there. He was fairly good about it until one of the guys passed us and started trotting up on ahead. I'd told them I was riding a young horse, but they seemed oblivious. Chance started dancing around, and fussing. I let him trot on a little, but he was not at all settled. I'm not too keen on just letting a horse go whenever he wants to, so I wasn't too happy about that. Good thing the other riders (3 of them) were heading back to their barn in the opposite direction of my place. Once they took the other trail, Chance calmed back down and we had a quiet hack back home.

I must admit, that aside from tossing his head up in the air and yanking the reins, Chance really didn't feel as if he were going to explode--Thank goodness I was not on Tucker!!-- but I haven't tested him too much in exciting circumstances, so I don't know how much I can trust him. Toby might have started bucking too, by the way, and once he gets riled up, he does not relax again at all. Then he is downright dangerous. Tucker would probably settle in again, but I doubt I would still be in the saddle after the first explosion. My two Thoroughbreds are not exactly reliable when things get exciting.

Toby has done hunter paces and once the first half hour goes by and he gets the jumping around out of his system, he's fine. He dumped me off the first time I tried one and he's scared the heck out of me on the later ones, but then he calms down and gives a pretty nice ride. Tucker? Never tried. Probably never will. Still, when he was down at Kenny Harlow's he was out for 5-6 hours at a time with a full group and they certainly didn't walk the whole ride. Trouble is, around here, there are no real groups to go out with and I'm sure, by now, he has lost the equilibrium the "Kenny Experience" had instilled in him.

That's fine. We have our own little set of trails to hack on. If I want to be more adventurous, I have Chance, the "Trail Master!!"