Frisky Pony

Kezi is definitely in heat again, and both horses were feeling frisky today. I went out to get Gambler and they both ran away from me bucking and rearing. Then Gambler proceeded to chase Kezi all over the pasture. At this point, I knew that I was not going to get them into the barn without grain, so I brought one of their buckets outside and shook it. That got their attention! Both of them took off cantering/galloping (I wasn't looking very closely) toward the barn.

What's that? You want us to come in?

Maybe some other time.

As you can see, we're a tad busy racing around like madhorses.

Trotting over to check out the dog.

Once they finally made their way into the barn, I left my brother to take pictures while I set up in the arena. He got some really great pics!

He just loves dogs.

When I was done setting up, I brought Gambler out to the arena.

My plan for the day was to work on the acceptance of the saddle, since he was pretty upset last time I saddled him up. However, he was really uppity from running about in the pasture, so I started out by trotting him over some poles. The little stud muffin proceeded to jump the poles instead of trot over them. 

There was one point where he spooked at something scary that I didn't see and jumped two ground poles. My brother caught it on video. If you pause while he's jumping, it's absolutely beautiful. Thankfully, that was the only spook today and he snapped out of it very quickly. 

There were a few moments when he really understood the trot pole concept and showed some great knee action.

 

Since he was jumping everything that I didn't expect him to jump, I decided to try a few little jumps. First I longed him over an itsy, bitsy cross rail and then I made it a little bigger using buckets for jump standards. The barn owner has wonderful jump standards, but they are hard to use when you are longeing because the rope gets tangled with the standard. Here is a video of the itsy, bitsy cross rail.

This is the bigger jump.

To finish the day, I let my brother longe Gambler. I was very impressed with both of them, since it was only their third time working together. My brother longed him at the trot for the first time and they both did great. 

Back on Track

I invited a close friend to visit Gambler today. I introduced them a while ago . . . but that didn't go so well. Gambler was officially on his worst behavior when she came to see him in August. Now that he has been doing so much better, I figured I'd bring her out to see him again.

He started out really well. I was afraid that we may have lost a lot of ground, since he pretty much had the whole week off. I had no need to worry. His walk, trot, canter was beautiful. He took each gait when I asked it, usually with just the voice cue. Our warm up was pretty much flawless. It was a really spooky day (wind, lawn mower, shooting range) so he did spook once, but nothing major. After he was warmed up we put the saddle on him for the first time since last Sunday.

At first he was pretty much the same, he still wanted to rush and he threw in a little buck here and there. Then some terribly scary thing (I didn't see or hear anything) spooked him and we got some real bucking. Still nothing too crazy. He relaxed right away, but then worked himself into another bucking fit. After the third time, I decided to keep him at a walk. Once he walked a few calm circles in both directions, I took the saddle off again.

I know it looks like he is kicking me in the face, but he's just bucking. He is a lot farther away from me than it looks in this picture.

After I took the saddle back off he relaxed a lot and we did some more circle work, this time without any spookiness. My friend even got to circle/longe him some. He tested her out at first, but once he realized that she wasn't gonna let him walk all over her he listened quite nicely. 

Afterwards I took advantage of the golden hour and got some nice photos.

Misty Mornings and Cleaning the Barn

The drive to the barn this morning was beautiful. It was one of those foggy autumn mornings that I have always loved. By the time we got to the barn, the sun was up and burning the fog away. I did get a few good pictures, but it's hard to see how hazy it was.

I couldn't help taking so many pictures, even though we were in a hurry, because it was such a beautiful day. The lighting was perfect for playing around with a camera. I also discovered the awesome zoom feature on Mom's camera (see the three photos above) and had to try it out. Because we were in a hurry, I didn't play with Gambler, just did chores.

Gambler looks like he is licking Kezi, but he's just licking and chewing as she walks by.

Still licking and chewing!

Later in the afternoon, we came back to help the barn owner with some cleaning. The tack room looks so much better! We also organized some of the stalls that are being used for storage. There was so much dust in the air; I kept sneezing.

It has to get messier before it can get cleaner.

Gambler thought the buckets of soapy water were the coolest things ever.

"Can I tip it over?"

When we tried to bring the horses in for evening chores, they weren't interested. Kezi is in heat again, so they ran around the pasture while I followed with the lead rope. Eventually I decided it wasn't worth it and grabbed my camera. If I have to chase them around the pasture, I might as well get some good pictures! Of course, once they saw I had the camera, they walked right up to me like nothing had happened.

"Oh hey Jenna. I didn't see you there!"

Gambler won't eat his anti-sand-colic stuff unless you feed it to him by hand, but thankfully he will eat his normal grain all on his own. We're only giving him the stuff (sorry, still don't know how to spell it :P) once a week now.

His bucket is blue now. ;)

After all of this, I was way to tired to do anything with Gambler. I was going to, but after running around the pasture, I just couldn't muster the energy. If I have learned anything about Gambler in the last six months, it is that if I can't get my energy up, he will completely blow me off. Tomorrow is a new day, and hopefully we can get back on track to riding soon!