Day 130

We celebrated Harry's birthday today, since it's actually on Tuesday. Next Tuesday is Brie's birthday too! I go on break next week, maybe I'll be able to go out some during the two weeks I'm off.

So for Harry's birthday he got somewhat of a break. Firstly, I wish I had my camera today. He has some scabby things goin on around his back ankles. We put some salve on them and are gonna watch to see if they spread. I really have no idea what they are and hopefully it's not a problem =\

He lunged really nicely today. Harry is a good horse to teach patience. I can't even count how many times I had to stop myself and just take a deep breath because I started anticipating some of his bad habits, so of course he started getting jumpy until I calmed myself.

After much convincing, I got him to go over the scary white poles on the leadline and he does the cutest little pops over it when I'm on his back. We have to fix that, but it's a start! He's so clumsy too, he almost always knocks the poles with his feet when he goes over.

Today I implemented all of Colin's advice, and I'm sure if I had about an hour more to ride it would've worked really nicely--I only got about a half hour once we stopped speculating about his ankles and the ground polework. I had very light contact and I actually felt him go from very up in the back all over the place with his gait to settling down and relaxing into his gait. It was pretty amazing, I'd never felt that before! Keeping this up will hopefully work. We shall see.

Jane was there today too! I now have an excuse to mess around with even more horses. She asked me to lunge Taco when I come out if I can, that way he doesn't go for huge periods without really using his brain, since she and Annie have been busy lately. She asked me to ride him way back when, but as I got more involved with Harry, I didn't have any time. Hopefully this quarter at school is slow and I can stay longer on weekends to work.