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.

Sick Day

The title says all. I woke up this morning with a sore throat. I would have stayed home from school, but today was my Gambler day. My family has a rule: "if you are too sick for school you are too sick for anything you want to do." I can't let the horse down just because I'm feeling a little under the weather. So I braved the school day.

When I got out to the barn I set up the arena. Then I went through the tricky task of getting Gambler into the arena without letting Kezi out of the pasture. It's actually not as hard as I thought it was going to be. Although the arena connects directly to the pasture, I usually lead Gambler through the barn to get to the arena so he doesn't every try to run through the fence back into the pasture (he has done this before). So I led Gambler up to the door of the barn and used the rope to chase Kezi just a few feet away. While she was walking away, I tossed the rope over Gambler's neck and let him into the barn. He of course made a beeline for the grain bucket (which to his dismay was empty) in his stall. Ta da! One horse in, one horse out.

Once I had him out in the arena, I groomed him and put his bell boots on. Then we started our warm up. Gambler was a little edgy because of the wind, so he did canter earlier than I usually let him. I quickly brought him back to a walk. Today he responded so well. He was trotting on nothing but the voice cue. But then I noticed something was off. Literally, Gambler was a little bit sore. It was so slight that I thought maybe I was imagining it. So I took the boots off and felt down his legs. Nothing was hot or swollen. I picked out his hooves (I probably should have done that first), but there wasn't anything in them. Mom and I agreed that he was off, but it was really slight. So far, nothing to worry about. Obviously, I didn't do anything more with him today. I guess we are both feeling icky today!

Since I had some extra time, I decided to decorate the jump poles. The barn owner mentioned a while back that I should get some duct tape and tape the jump poles. I've had the duct tape in my vehicle for a while, but I've never found the time to do it. After decorating two poles, I stopped to take advantage of the light and take some awesome pictures.

Picking out his feet.

Apparently Gambley "parks" when you scratch his itchy spot.

I love the layers of color in this picture. This is the road that runs beside the arena.

I got him in the middle of a head-shake.

He's pretending to ignore me, but do you see those perky ears?

Behold: The Horse-Eating Trees!

Another head shake.

The jump poles.

It looks really nice for being duct tape.