Day Fifteen

So, first of all, I have to say--I know, I know, his mane looks incredibly silly. You all have my complete permission to laugh. All the other horses around here already have been. But I want to protect Cash's oh-so-lovely long locks, and Bob graciously donated the use of some of his old dress socks. At least they match.

It was a beautiful day today, albeit a bit muddy from all the melting snow from our not-so-beautiful days last week. Cash and I are now riding completely outside the roundpen at all three gaits. Usually, the first canter on a colt outside of the roundpen is a bit of a yahoo moment, but not so with Cash. I was surprised by how easily he transitioned into the canter and how relatively relaxed he felt. See the last two pictures of the post below to see some canter shots from today. Cash has also started learning direct flexion /softening at the halt, and he feels pretty soft in your hand, so I'm excited to start doing some while moving. He's gonna be a heck of a pretty little thing when he moves when he's all "finished."

We didn't get any pictures of it today, but we're riding over the tarps and the plywood sheet now. Now I just need to build a bridge obstacle. And, as you can see below, we've progressed to the .22 black powder blanks with no problem. I'm not sure if I'm going to use guns in my freestyle (if we make it to the freestyle) but I'm sure someone else will, so I figure he should get used to it.

We started learning some tricks on our too-cold-and-snowy to ride Friday. For reasons of creative security, I can't reveal which tricks we're learning, but they're nothing too out of the ordinary. But still fun, of course.

Cash had his first hoof trim and it went pretty well. We got 3 1/2 feet trimmed with no problem. Then he decided that he didn't want to keep his right hind up for trimming and he kept wanting to move his hind end away. My trimmer, Blaine St. Peter (he's great!) opted to wait a few days and come back to finish that hoof. So we've since spent lots of time working on lifting and keeping that hoof up comfortably. We'll see if our work there has paid off tomorrow when Blaine comes back out.

Perhaps the coolest thing is that Cash now nickers to greet me whenever I walk up towards his paddock. He has a very endearing nicker--kind of sounds more like foal than a 4yo horse. He's very sweet.

Stay tuned for our next happenings--I hope to be able to trailer in somewhere this week. I think Cash is ready for a little adventure.