Road Riding

Jasper seems to be acclimating well to stall life. He seems to particularly like to spread out the expensive timothy grass hay all over his stall and then walk through it and pee on it. Must be nice to have a nice bed made out the good stuff. He's been nice and relaxed, and I think enjoys having his own space for eating and drinking. At the very least, I know he can be kept in a stall should the need ever arise. I'm still tossing him out in a pasture as soon as the month is over, since I think it's better for them mentally.

When I arrived at the barn today, someone had already turned their horse out into the indoor arena, so I dragged Jasper to the muddy outdoor turnout. Big mistake. When I returned to get him ready for riding, he had rolled in mud puddles and was absolutely caked in the stuff. Since I've owned him, I've kept him absolutely pristinely clean because I HATE getting mud off horses. I wear gas permeable lenses (the rigid ones), and there's no hope for me if I have to groom such a horse. [Side note--my new glasses got in today and are being sent to me here in Pullman. Yay!]

I cleaned off only what the saddle and girth would touch and saddled him up. We started in the indoor arena, and he was relaxed and moving very nicely today. After a sufficient warmup, I took him out to the road to do some practice walking away from the barn. He was a bit balky at first, but the further away we got, the better things were. He didn't spook as much as usual today, probably because we only went about 1/4 mile away from the barn. It helps to ride on a wide road, since he can see scary things from further away and doesn't spook at them so bad. We worked on calmly walking back towards home, and then we returned to the arena for more trotting and cantering. I'm trying to get it through to him that returning doesn't necessarily mean the end of working, which is why I've been consistent about working him when I get back to the trailer on "out" rides.

Tomorrow I'm planning to do our first alone conditioning ride along the roads. We'll probably be walking/trotting for most of it, but I'm planning to do 5 miles or so.