I've been having fun catching the horses 4 times a day, to take them to and from pasture. At first Bella was playing hard to get, but we've worked it out. Last night Tonka also decided he didn't want to be taken off the nice lush grass, and the two of them ran around a lot. Surprisingly, it was Bella who decided to stop and be caught first. Probably from all the work we've been doing lately. Tonka was easy after the other two had been moved, because he wanted to be with his buddies. I can't blame them for not wanting to come in since I'm taking them from a lovely green pasture to a small, dusty dry lot.
Tuesday night we went on a nice trail ride. I took Tonka. I really love that horse. The ride was pretty easy and he'd been hiking all weekend, so I didn't worry too much about over-stressing his muscles. He did fine!
When we were done I didn't like the way the saddle had dug in behind his shoulders, so yesterday I tried my favorite saddle on him, with the Ricotti pad to take up any extra width he didn't need, and it went well. He didn't take off bucking, so I guess that's good. :) I only rode him for a few minutes because I was hoping for another evening trail ride, but that didn't happen. It's supposed to be super hot today so I'm going to go out pretty soon and ride him in that saddle again. I'll be tickled if he likes it. I love that saddle. I've removed the rear cinch on both saddles, and that seems to have helped with his panicked bucking. The rear cinch tends to be a problem with EPSM horses. A lot like a "cold backed" horse (which is also a sign of EPSM) they just can't tolerate that feeling when first saddled up.
I better get my butt in gear if I'm going to ride. I want to keep his riding up so we can go on a longer ride this weekend. We'll see how that goes.
Hope you had a good ride!
ReplyDelete