Last night I went out the stables to ride Max- I love these long summer days because I can get off work and still have plenty of light to ride by. It was a pretty warm day although things were beginning to cool down a bit by the time I got there.
After saddling up Max, I decided to do a light trail ride so I headed out on my usual route down the wash, accross the river and loop back. Max had no issues except he was his usual lazy self in moving out- talk about the SLOW walk! Fortunately, that's what spurs are for...
The only problem was after crossing the river, Max didn't want to go into a canter. I gave him a sharp whack with the crop and then the spur- it was one of those horse BS things- "Let's see what sort of shit I can get away with!" Not.
I got him into a relatively slow canter (I didn't press the issue, I'm just focusing on keeping his attention and moving out in an orderly manner) and cantered him all the way over to where the jogging path begins to go onto the top of Hansen Dam.
When I then turned him to make our way in a homeward direction, Max naturally picked up his pace- what an SOB, he really makes it look like he's sooo tired and then...total energy.
On the way home, I stopped off at one of the public round pens by Orcas Park to work him at the canter/walk transitions. Also, throughout the ride, I also made Max do a number of yielding to the bit exercises, which for the most part he did well on.
Overall, everything went well. Perhaps this weekend I might ride him up to the bathtub on the Doc Larsen Trail. We shall see...
After saddling up Max, I decided to do a light trail ride so I headed out on my usual route down the wash, accross the river and loop back. Max had no issues except he was his usual lazy self in moving out- talk about the SLOW walk! Fortunately, that's what spurs are for...
The only problem was after crossing the river, Max didn't want to go into a canter. I gave him a sharp whack with the crop and then the spur- it was one of those horse BS things- "Let's see what sort of shit I can get away with!" Not.
I got him into a relatively slow canter (I didn't press the issue, I'm just focusing on keeping his attention and moving out in an orderly manner) and cantered him all the way over to where the jogging path begins to go onto the top of Hansen Dam.
When I then turned him to make our way in a homeward direction, Max naturally picked up his pace- what an SOB, he really makes it look like he's sooo tired and then...total energy.
On the way home, I stopped off at one of the public round pens by Orcas Park to work him at the canter/walk transitions. Also, throughout the ride, I also made Max do a number of yielding to the bit exercises, which for the most part he did well on.
Overall, everything went well. Perhaps this weekend I might ride him up to the bathtub on the Doc Larsen Trail. We shall see...
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