Any day with my horse...

is a good day. Haven't been at the barn as much as I'm use to lately but that is about to change. I have 6 days left and I am back in the saddle. I have been thinking about cheating but when I bring it up hubby gives me the evil eye. I guess the solution is not to bring it up :)

Headed out to the barn this morning to lunge. My timing was great. Two riders were just finishing up and no one else was there. I try to avoid lunging with riders in the arena as much as I can. Boo usually lunges well under control but there are those odd times when he's full of himself or something spooks him. I have ridden in an arena with an out of control horse being lunged, and I find it irritating and dangerous. I don't see that as much at the barn I am at now. Most everyone is in control of their horse.

Boo didn't think work was such a good idea today. I could tell by the way he kept trying to inch his way out of the arena while I was cleaning his feet. Once he figured out that wasn't going to work, he decided to rush and spook at the short ends of the arena to see if that might be his ticket back to the pasture. I responded by having him come back down to a walk and walked him past the short ends repeatedly until he finally went past them without even looking like he might spook. Once we had that accomplished I sent him off in a trot and let him work himself up and down the length of the arena. Once he warmed up he was moving forward and reaching under himself quite well. Boo can be a bit lazy so I was happy to see this behavior. He responded well to all my voice commands going from walk, to trot, to canter, to trot, to canter, to walk, and back to canter. He worked well both directions and worked up a bit of a sweat, which only goes to show he is a out of shape. We put on a cooler and walked around the arena for about 20 minutes drying him out.

I go back out tomorrow to meet up with the farrier. It feels good to know I'll be there again tomorrow. Even though we won't be doing any lunging again so soon. I think hubby might ride him tomorrow night. If not then, he will on Saturday. Can't be letting the boy get anymore out of shape than he already is.