I got asked why I have not been talking about X on the blog and the answer is because X and I are having a tough time right now. Last week I was good and rode every day that I was home, but he and I went back to our old fighting ways. You see the old man is feeling good, to good on my opinion, so he is acting like a distracted 4 year old rather then a been there done that nearly 21 year old. He even did a little jump and spin when a many prong deer decided to jump into the ring and join us (I was having a heart attack and wanted to run away but X was too good to run away and just stood watching the deer while I was jumping around). I didn’t even think the old man COULD get all four feet off the ground at once and not fall over when he landed. After the deer incident it took 3 days to get him to settle down the crazy old thing.
He was Mr. jumping bean again the day after the deer until I got sick of it and got off, walked to his face, looked him in the eye and told him to cut the crap. When I remounted again he was perfect! Day 2 of being a dumb butt I did the same thing and got the same result. Day 3 though of him being silly I had enough of the baby horse jigging and snorting so we worked through it. We worked hard and got through every thing no problem and got good work. I thought we were on the right path. I am not sure if he had been so bad all week because of the deer or because I was carrying my own tension about his move with me when I was riding. Probably both.
I got a call from the barn owner Wednesday night worried that something was wrong with X. She got to the barn about 45 minutes after I left and was worried because normally the old man likes to trot (well jog really) in from the field at night, but not that night. He was tired and she was worried he was getting sick because she didn’t know I had ridden him. He perked up once it was dinner time but the poor guy was tired. Anyway so I got on him on Thursday before I left, yet again, and he was LAME. Like could hardly walk lame. I had obviously been planning a light day for him anyway, but I got on, walked him around for 10 minutes and got off because he didn’t work out of it. It was his arthritic more then anything the poor thing. Now I know to just scold and not work through things. He is no spring chicken anymore and if a scolding works I should stick with that. I got on him yesterday and he still was NQR, but much better. So hopefully we will have a better week and I will go easy on him. We have a lot to work on at the walk (working to freewalk to working walk again and of course walk halts, lateral work, etc).
So there is the X update.
A Horse and a Half 