We are closing in on the official “start” of my & Prophecy’s AERC journey together.  Granted, we are only doing the intro – but he has a lot to learn yet (as do I).  I have high hopes for the year, but not so many goals as I have had in the past, trying to let us go with the flow a bit and see how he does. The ultimate goal being decade team together and happy and healthy partners.

Crupper training

Attempting to untie himself

This week we did a walk with a ‘tight’ crupper instead of flapping in the wind behind Monday, and then some round pen work trying out yet another pad combination Thursday (no go), and lastly Sunday we had 72 degree day to enjoy the trails!  Of course, with each of those came also treating his front right hoof for the WLD….sigh.

The ride Sunday unfortunately did not go as I hoped.  He was quite the argumentative one and threatened to buck many a times.  So, we finished the loop that I started him on and then did some round pen work.  He was sweaty after that, so given the nice weather he got a hose down!  He has made me think about sending him back a trainer for a refresher, but this is the first “bad” ride we’ve had alone.  This ride is coming on the heels of the two past rides with horses that spooked and sent him into a tizzy, so I may be having some regression of his confidence out there alone.

The cool thing about it though, was I got a pair of Scoot Boots to use on his front feet! The company is based out of Australia, and they are super simple to put on. He took a few funny steps as we went to the round pen, but then adjusted easily.  I gave him a few minutes to figure them out in there and then we headed out with a good boy at the mounting block without running off…so I not all was lost today – we had good moments. 

Horses always leave you guessing… I am not exactly sure what the problem for our ride was, as we did go back to trying the Skito today and I just think it is too much for him and slid forward worse than the Matrix combo on a hill (without a crupper). We’ll go back to the Matrix without inserts and I’m hoping to add a Dixie Midnight pad to help with the rolling since a non-slip liner has done so well.  As he muscles up and drops the chub more I can add the inserts back in, but for now it seems he is best suited to not have any in the pad.

Post trails and round pen… Am I done now?

waiting for a bath

Right to Left shoulders are looking ‘less’ uneven… good spinal clearance

Drying off itching his face And some funny videos Prophecy playing with the hose and Roll Time!  He booked it as soon as I let him back to pasture to roll

His feet have me spinning… I looked back through the photo journey of his WLD from June and noticed a trend with front right wanting to “separate” on the outside quarter.  I’m hoping that getting him balanced mineral wise will help us beat this (he was high iron and out of sync ration for Copper and Zinc), but not ruling out the option to x-ray his hooves sometime soon to know where we stand if there is something more behind it all.