Back in the saddle!

So Axel is back to his antics again: escaping the pasture. The past two weeks I've gotten reports that when the caretakers arrive home from work Axel is standing in the front yard waiting for them. The real kicker is that some of these times (I think) he's somehow gotten out of an electrified pasture.

When I arrived last night I called for the horses and was greeted by the usual stampede. Everyone except Gunner and Axel. I wasn't too concerned since Gunner never joins the stampede and I figured if Axel was still sore he would just take his time. Pretty soon Gunner came running and still no Axel. The horses were confined to the south side of the hill pasture so I walked down the hill through the woods to look for the missing horse. No luck so I started calling for Axel. Pretty soon I see him trotting up from the north side of the hill pasture to greet me at the new stretchy gate on the wrong side of the fence. Now I'm not too concerned at his escaping in this instance as the fence isn't hot down there and the portion of the fence next to the gate seemed awfully loose. Probably quite easy for a grazing horse to not notice it or for an easy escape if someone was chasing him. Though I might have to start seriously thinking about a microchip, quick release halter, and an ID tag for my horse that thinks he's a dog.

The good part of all this was that Axel was sound and trotting and not on Bute. So I haltered him and we walked up to the barn. I decided we'd just do a nice walk down the road, nothing spectacular just a nice fall ride. Axel was a bit preoccupied with trying to aim for the ditch. I let him choose his path for a while but the ditch is so full of gopher holes I didn't want him stepping in one and hurting himself even more. He's pretty amusing if you let him just wander where he chooses, he gets distracted very easily and starts wandering in whatever direction the next interesting thing is in even when heading back to the barn.

When we returned to the barn Patti was getting Daley ready for a ride and asked if I wanted to join them. So I grabbed Cody, who apparently has found himself a skunk friend and is quite smelly now. We tacked up and then went down to the back hill. He was his usual slow self not wanting to lead going away from the barn, but once we got moving and up on the top of the hill he was resolved that the ride was happening and was fine leading. I think he's finally realized that he can eat a lot easier in the rope hackamore than he can in a bit. I spent a lot of time trying to get his head out of the grass and it was quite annoying. Despite the slowness and eating grass he was much better than the last ride. We still didn't quite walk down and up the little hill in the woods (our arch nemesis) but he didn't totally spaz over it so I let it go. We even cantered up the really big hill with no bucking (how any horse has the energy to buck up that hill I don't know but Axel seems to do it every time lately).

On the way back I had to grab Jeff's archery target which was a lot heavier than I had remembered it to be. Luckily it had a handle and I was able to carry it while riding Cody even as awkward as it was Cody did fine. I think it might have weighed him down a bit because he wasn't eager to bolt up the last hill to the barn and walked with very little convincing.

With Axel back in riding condition (knock on wood) I should see if Tricia wants to go for a ride this weekend. Of course it's always a pain to come down my way when the cool trails are up where she lives and without an attachment for Jeff's truck and the trailer lights I don't think I'm ready for my first foray into trailer driving. Perhaps I will ride one of her horses or convince her we should go south somewhere. We shall see.

Long Time No See

It's only been over a week since I've been out to see Cody and Axel and in that time Axel has turned black once again as his winter coat is starting to grow in. Cody is getting all the white fuzz on his belly and between his back legs. Winter is almost here! When I was in Maine last week I got an email from Patti stating that Axel was sore again and lumpy. He's always been lumpy from what I can tell so I wasn't too concerned. Last night he was still a bit sore but in retrospect I think he was stiff from not moving. And he was lumpy or his existing lumps were swollen. I cold hosed his foot for awhile to see if I could get the swelling down any. Axel enjoyed a snack in the lawn while holding his left rear foot high in the air to try and avoid the hose. When I was done he actually walked pretty well. I chose not to ride him and we're giving him 1g of bute for the next week to try and get the swelling down. Hopefully he'll be back to himself next week (and hopefully the beans will be out of the field so we can go for a canter).

Much to Cody's dismay I chose to ride him. I don't think Andrea has been out to ride in a while so I think he thinks he's on vacation. I decided I wasn't ready for a fight on the road if he was feeling ornery and I wasn't in the mood to mount and dismount a million times to move manure since one nasty neighbor has decided that manure doesn't belong on country dirt roads. So we went down the back hill instead. I mounted at the middle of the hill by the first stretchy gate. We got to where the trees start on the sandy part of the hill and began our circles. Cody didn't want to go in my direction and I didn't want to go back to the barn. After several circles and a couple failed attempts to go down the other hill we finally made it down to the bridge (all in the rope hackamore). We crossed the bridge and only had to do one or two circles on that side to get the right momentum to go up the hill. We trotted part way up the hill and then walked the rest. We had what was supposed to be a trot but turned into a canter in the meadow on the top of the hill. He wasn't totally with me as far as downward transitions up there so we did another loop and tried again and got a nice trot.

We did a few more various loops around that area and worked on "stand" near the hill to go home. That might have been a futile lesson. Down the hill went fine, crossed the bridge, went in the other direction back to the barn. But as soon as we got to the first part of the hill between the trees there was no walking to be had. We did one circle but it didn't really make a difference, Cody was in his "you think I'm walking but really it's a trot" gait. When we got to the last stretch of hill and he still wouldn't walk I thought "fine we'll trot up and then turn around and do it over and over until he walks." Well he thought "I'll canter gallop and buck and maybe she'll get off." (First time he's ever bucked with me on I might add). I did get off, and we did more circles at the top of the hill and changed directions over and over. Then we walked back down the hill where I remounted (shoulda done it at the top I suppose) and then we walked back up the hill.

At that point I decided the barn needed to be not such a nice place so we went out to the side pasture next to the barn and next to the rest of the herd and we rode out there. We trotted for a while, did some serpentines at the walk, tried at the trot but it was a little spastic. We even had some slightly faster than collected canters (no bucking). One of the canters he might have been disuniting which we noticed on the lunge last time so I stopped that. I dismounted away from the barn, led him around for a while to cool off, loosened his girth away from the barn, did some backing up through two bushes, and finally brought him back to the barn.

Will any of that stick? Probably not, but oh well. He was pretty good in the rope hack. He's very responsive to neck reining just also very stubborn to get back to the barn in the process. I don't think the ride would have been any better (or worse) with a bit and I don't think he would have listened to me any more with a bit. I think maybe the benefit of the rope hack with Cody is that now he doesn't have that bit or shank to pay attention to or try to eat constantly. So I'm hoping now he will listen to his rider more. Wishful thinking right?

Mud Everywhere!

Where to even start? As usual we did our best to meet at the barn and get everything loaded up on time if not early and I think we actually succeeded this time. However it was raining and so we probably stood around a bit longer hoping it would stop. When it didn't really, we hooked up the trailer and loaded horses and were on the road about 10 minutes after we planned to actually be at the park. For this trip we went with Cody and Axel in the front and Kiko and Kalani in the back. Cody got in with a little help from the tapping stick, no big deal. Axel is always a champ and jumps right in. Kiko and Kalani had a bit of trouble but nothing major. I just managed to get stepped on by Kalani as he decided to exit prematurely. Ended up with a bruise on my thigh that you can't actually see.

At some point the rain let up, the horses were tied to the trailer at the park happily munching away at some hay. We were all getting our paperwork turned in and having some lunch when it started raining for real. And it rained and rained and didn't show any signs of letting up. Though once we finally gave in and went to tack horses it did let up for a while. We managed to make most of the ride either under the trees out of the rain or with just minor sprinkling. We didn't, however, miss out on any of the mud. At one point we came to a spot in the trail that was mud all the way across. A really wide part of the trail too. Anne and Cinder tried to make a new trail through the trees but ended up in some low area and Cinder went up to his chest in mud, Anne bailed and they both decided that was not the place to cross. We finally managed to get everyone across the mud on the opposite side. The trip back Kiko decided to jump over the mud which was an interesting feat to say the least.

Overall the ride went well. Cody managed to walk most of the trail with only a few minor bouts of needing to trot in place, and it was the first time Andrea rode him in the rope hack and the first time he was ridden in the rope hack with all sorts of unknown horses around. Axel found his soul mate when it comes to trail rides, Alissa's horse Pacman is just Axel's speed. Darrel might have been pushing Axel a bit to walk up but I think if he was given a choice Axel would have hung back with Pacman all day. Kiko was her normal sane self and didn't even bat an eye when other mares joined our group. Kalani had a few issues just with the new horses and not knowing them and wanting to check everyone out. Other than that everyone survived (and there was not spastic cantering for me yipee). It would have been nice if the weather was better and perhaps more people would have made it out but we did raise over our targeted amount for We Can Ride so that was great! And we found a nice new leg of the trail. We usually head East on that trail so this time we opted for West. From that particular parking lot to the end of the trail to the West is about 3.5 miles. So it was a nice short little round trip (7 miles total). The East leg of the trail from the main parking/camping area to the highway is about 6.5 miles so that's a lot longer and, as we found out, a lot sandier. The West leg is wide grassy trail which is a nice change of pace. Had it not been raining there would have been a lot of nice spots for trotting or cantering.

So when all was said and done we packed all our stuff back up and decided to put Cody and Kalani in the front this time. We thought Kalani was just too long for the back of the trailer. Turns out Axel is also too long for the back of the trailer but he did fine and it was a short trip. Another discovery was that Cody is quite calm when asked to back out of the trailer "lead rope over his back" style. In fact he backed halfway through the trailer by himself and then stopped and looked around for a person to guide him the rest of the way out. Axel still insists on turning around to get out. That one might take a while to get figured out.

Axel's not so evil twin

It was cloudy and raining and not so great on Tuesday so I decided not to go to the barn, no one else was going to make it out anyways. So I made it out on Wednesday instead, and alone this time as well. The mecate reins I ordered had arrives so I wanted to try them out on Cody's rope halter ala "natural hackamore" style. Bosal's are pretty spendy and I'm not sure what size to get for Cody yet so I figured I'd try out the rope halter as a hack. The reins I bought are really inexpensive and really stiff. They might just have to be that way for a while, I was thinking of washing them to soften them up but since they are nylon I'm afraid they will actually get stiffer or just icky to touch. Guess that's what I get for going the cheap route! If this works out well for Cody I might upgrade to a sampson rope mecate if I can find one that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

So I hopped on Cody bareback and we just went for a quick spin around the side pasture. He was great. Very sensitive to leg and rein cues as well as each individually. He seemed pretty happy with the lack of bit as well. Despite his obvious want to go hang out at the gate with his friends he followed my instructions willingly. So I called the experiment a success and hopped off.

I gathered Axel and got him ready for some schooling work as well. As I was about to mount up Andrea and Patti arrived and sat on the step of the house chatting while I rode. We did some really nice free walk and a bit of trotting on a loose rein trying to get him moving freely. He has such a hard time finding where to put his feet, he's very unsure of himself and trips a lot. It might be time to start trotting over poles. When we had done some good trotting and worked on some collecting and figure 8s I started asking for a canter just going in a big loop around the pasture. Nothing too serious, no sharp turns or anything that should make things more difficult for him. He tried and was slightly annoyed mostly when passing the gate to the barn. I switched directions and got the same sort of annoyed response. Usually followed by 1 maybe 2 strides of canter. Finally I think on our third time in the original direction I got at least 4 nice canter strides, asked him to stop, and nearly jumped off him as a reward. We'll have to keep working on it, I think he just isn't sure of himself but who knows. At least there was no bucking or throwing his head down (sadly it might have to do with the fact he didn't have to catch up to anyone).

When I was done Andrea and Patti went to get Cody and Daley and were on their way for a little bareback ride on the trail. From the sounds of it Cody stood by quite patiently while Andrea experimented with methods for mounting bareback. I guess he was a very good boy.