Trotting Away

After wearing that fly mask all the time to block the sun, Cody is always very happy to have my scratch his face with the squishy rubber curry. I usually end up taking off a whole lot of hair and dirt in the process. I picked up some baby wipes with aloe to use on his nose if he does get sun burnt. I figured it should feel pretty good on a sore nose. He looked a little pink last night so I gave it a try. He actually didn't mind it and wow did it clean him up a lot. So here's your cheap horse keeping tip of the day - use baby wipes. Lookit that cute pink nose!

So last night's goal was just to trot. Trot trot trot. It went pretty well. Cody was a little mad I wouldn't let him veer off to the gate when we'd pass. But boy does he steer well when there's a whip in his way. You just have to put it in his line of sight and he'll turn away from it real quick. When I pushed my luck and asked for a canter that's when he started to get strung out and angry. I'm not sure what his deal is with that but I might have to just keep working at the trot. Perhaps he's out of shape or balance. Maybe more lunging and long lining. But his rein back has been getting a bit better. I want to come up with a few more things to try and see what keeps his interest. If I can get Jeff to build me some jump standards we'll try some small jumps. Maybe some pole weaving? Maybe some rollbacks on the rail? Still working on some turns/spins.

A Little Huntseat

No photos from last night's ride :( Video might have been interesting, not sure how I would have looked. I got out the huntseat saddle and swapped it with the dressage saddle. I figure if I ever get around to showing I'd be showing WSCA and there's no dressage classes. So I thought it'd be best to start riding in that saddle for a while. J said it looked good on Cody. I felt like a fish out of water. I haven't ridden with my knees that bent in ages. But if I'm going to play around with some jumping as well I guess I need to get used to it!

Cody had a bit of a bump on the outside of his right front pastern so I decided to lunge him before I tacked to make sure he wasn't hurting. He was lazy lazy lazy (gotta remember that stick with the plastic bag) but he didn't seem to hurt at all. After fidgeting with the saddle to get it to feel at least a little normal we were on our way (how in the world do you keep your leg on when your knee is bent so much?). I had the foresight to grab the whip so I didn't have to kick constantly. And actually having my legs up a bit higher seemed to help a bit as well. But with two other horses in the arena there was a lot of temptation to stop and watch them work. We manged to do quite a bit of trotting but Cody is a little confused on posting. He slows down quite a bit making it nearly impossible to post. So before we attempt any jumping we'll have to work on that. J was showing the stuff she was working on with Amigo to get him to calm down in the canter. J3 (heh yes there are 3 Js at the barn) gave it a try with Steele. He gets a little full of himself and speeds up so they were talking about doing some spiral-ins. He's back from the trainer so J3 has been riding him quite a bit it seems. He's still heavy on the front but he seems to go quieter than he did before she sent him away. I attempted some cantering with Cody, wrong lead to the left nearly every time. Finally had to counter bend the heck out of him to get that left lead. J said he had a really nice lope. Right lead he just didn't want to canter at all but when we got it he kept it up for a lap or so and did a nice halt when asked.

After all that work I was sweaty. But Cody was actually barely wet so I guess I didn't work him too hard. I'll probably try and ride him again tonight and if no one is in the arena we'll do some lunging over ground poles and then maybe just work on trotting. I'll see if I can just let him go and do two point or post and let him have his head and just move out. If no one else is around I'll try and video it despite my fear that my riding position will look like crap. Eek!