Johnny's had almost a week off now since his first colic episode at the beginning of last week and has shown considerable improvement since Saturday's illness. We made a few diet changes and he's been getting mineral oil out the wazoo to hopefully get his digestive system working properly again. I'm going to start him on some Probiotics but I don't have any up at school (usually Emmy is the one with digestive upsets!) so that will have to wait until we ship home this weekend for winter break.
Yesterday I put him on the lunge for about 15 minutes and let him play a bit. He was getting SO bored not being ridden and it was starting to reflect a little in his sour attitude. He gets exceedingly pushy when he's cranky -.-
Anyway, so I stuck him on the lunge for a bit and boy was he fresh! Usually he is one of those horses that you have to fling a whip at to get him to go anywhere and so I brought one into the arena just in case, but as soon as I picked it up he was adios; squealing and leaping and attempting to buck and kick out. Unfortunatly he's so uncoordinated that it wasn't really working. It was actually really funny to watch because he would canter and then buck and kind of trip himself and have to trot a step or two and then canter again...poor horse lol. The good news is that we cantered on both leads right away and he seemed to have a much fresher attitude afterwards.
Today E and I hacked him a little and he was excellent! E rode first and he looked to happy and relaxed going around that his back was actually swinging and he wanted to drop his head down a bit. His left lead canter has gotten soooo much better! After she trotted and cantered a bit I got on and worked on his right lead, which he gave me easily on the second try. After that he got it right away when I asked him, cantered down the long side and around the corner before breaking. I don't usually push him much...I'll take what I can get at this stage!
He was really, really soft and supple today though. His sitting trot was really good and he was bending right away off my aides and moving away from my inside leg when I asked him (he looovvveeessss to drop his inside shoulder.) His right canter (funny thing...) is actually better than his left lead as far as the quality of the gait goes. Strange that the lead that was so hard to learn is actually the better balanced one... We also got a really nice simple change left to right across the diaganol. I played with him once a while ago to see if he would do it and he did right away, so now I work it into our daily "right lead canter" work. He learns A LOT from repetition and then tries to anticipate what you want, which I'm spinning to my advantage with this whole lead change thing. If I can routinely canter him across the diaganol and ask him for a simple change, we might be well on our way to a left to right flying :)
As for me, I'm getting ready to start packing up the apartment and heading home for winter break. Johnny is shipping home Saturday and I will be right behind him with a car full of stuff. It's back to the farm for us in just a few days! I will miss my indoor arena...lol
Now it is time to start packing!
Peace.Love.Ponies.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment