Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Long weekend

I had a long weekend with a lot of riding. Thursday, the river was too high to cross, but we crossed Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. My sister and I took Ranger and Cruiser out for more than an hour each day. We did a fair amount of trotting, too.


Cole was a different problem. Wednesday and Thursday, I rode him in the arena. He has decided he doesn’t want to go forward unless it is his own idea. Ugh…I had to be tough with him,,, and I don’t like being tough.

I took him down trail Friday-Sunday, and each day, he offered me challenges. I hope he is just going through a stage. His worst offense was trying to spin to go home. We even had a few bad spooks, but they were legitimate. Once was a very loud trailer made a noise. He went airborne on that one. We had an awful time with some geese, too. They were having a battle right at our river crossing. After a while, he wasn’t afraid of them, but I had to wait until they were out of the way before I crossed.

Due to the odd behavior, I checked his back, and there doesn’t seem to be any soreness from the saddle, and it seems to be fitting him fine.

I rode him last night in the arena after the horrendous thunderstorm that we had. (Rain, wind and incredible hail) I am so glad I didn’t like the look at the sky and didn’t take Cruiser on the trail. Back to Cole, he did better than he did in the arena the last few times. He only stalled out a couple times and I had very little trouble with his transitions. He was a little pokey and unenthusiastic in his trot much of the time. Towards the end of the ride, he was doing pretty well.

He has today off, after 6 days of riding.

I got to spend a lot of time with my sister and boyfriend with the extra time off of work. Now that I am back, it feels like I never left…

1 comment:

Achieve1dream said...

Wow six days in a row. I bet he was getting cranky. Gotta love how lazy our silly horses are. I'm sure it's just a stage he's going through. He sounds like such a willing, cooperative horse. :) Stay consistent and just ride it out.