Day 173

So this morning I was talking to my mom about what we'd do when we got out to ride. She decided that we'd put weight bracelets on Harry's back feet and Brie would get the fruit basket today. My mom wants to turn her back into a show horse rather than a "LET'S CHARGE DOWN THE TREELINE" horse. So, guessing that Brie would be the worse one, I took her today.

Somehow, whenever we choose like that, we always end up reversed. Brie adjusted to the fruit basket quite nicely (other than when she was trying to figure out how to poop). Harry, from the looks of it, was completely freaking out over the bracelets. I like to say that he looked like he was squishing grapes for wine. According to my mom, he kept pulling and charging and bucking and not wanting to walk AT ALL.

Brie and I were just floating along. =] I put double reins on her, which I soon found out she hated going backwards in her training. She kept pulling and pulling on the jaquima rein, so I took it off and she immediately set her head super nicely and tucked and stopped pulling when I used just the bit rein. I'd like to keep it that way, but until she gets more flexible again, I have to use the double so it takes the stress off of her mouth.

By the time I got to Harry, I'm pretty sure my mom wore him out. After fighting with him for a couple of minutes at the start while he kept trying to pull away from me, I set the reins down, recollected myself, and went back to how Paco used to ride him when we first got him -- high hands and loose reins.

And he was wonderful. He walked, walked, walked and when we corto'd, it was a little pace-y, but by the time we got to our last pass across the soundboard he was sounding phenomenal. I'd like to try him first again tomorrow to see if it was just him being worn out or if I was doing something right, but my mom wants him first again.

Nina, on the other hand...we came in and she looked fine. We took everyone out to be groomed and my brother calls us over and shows us this.

Somehow, she made a huge gash on the inside of her left hind leg. If we were actually going to Nationals this week, we certainly would not be showing with this! I wish I had taken a comparison picture, but this leg was swollen like a balloon compared to her right leg. After washing it, putting peroxide, iodine, and some other wound salve we had on it, we wrapped it.

Which she then took off when she got into the pasture to walk around a little bit. She wasn't limping or anything, so it must've been a day old or so. We determined that it must be from her scratching herself and the nails from her shoe catching the skin. We're not too happy about that, to say the least. We were going to do another round of shoes in a week, but because we're not showing and now this, we're just going to take them off. We'll give Nina this week rest and see how it looks next weekend before my brother starts riding her again.

Day 165

Sunday

If every day were like today, weather-wise, I'd be in heaven. It was the PERFECT day for riding. The sun was shining, the breeze was blowing. It was just the right temperature. We let all of them outside to run around before we rode, and my goal was to play with Harry in the field, but I think I ended up scaring him a little bit while I chased him around. Oops.

Of course because Harry had nice rides the last couple times we've been out, he had to act like a complete brat yesterday.

We all know the cause though -- the dreadful fruit basket (rear end collector). My mom rode him first with the fruit basket because she wanted to, well, collect him more for the show this weekend. 

While I rode Brie, who was a speed demon today, Mom was getting tossed around by Harry. It's bad enough that he has a horrible habit of getting angry when he's separated from Nina or even Brie who has made it clear that she doesn't like him, but with the added stress of the fruit basket he was extra bratty to her. He gave her a little bit of a hard time while we were in the indoor, but we were with a bunch of horses. Brie was just cruising around the arena like it was a racetrack when I saw my mom go in the outdoor arena. I followed her out a little while after, only to find her fighting with Harry, trying to keep him from spinning around and running back into the barn where all the action was at. I decided to push him along with Brie and he got angry, spun around and bucked and my mom almost fell off. She told me by then that was the third buck and she got off of him because he was clearly getting ready to rear after that and longed him around some traffic cones (which equally freaked him out). She got back on him and rode him back inside (which is what he wanted) and then worked him in there. 

Then she gave him to me. By then he was just all hunky-dory about being inside again so he was good, but still....this is turning out to be a major problem, this separation anxiety. Any tips on helping us get him over this problem?