First Big Boy Outing

I awoke this morning to a day of possibilities.  Not only did I have no patient care, but I had no other obligations.  An entire day to myself to get caught up on stuff around the house.  Never before have I been so excited to attack a check list!

First on my list of non-mundane tasks was to start tackling Onyx's feet.  He had been due for a trim a few weeks ago, but due to some family tragedies of the breeder, he wasn't able to get done.  I had picked up his feet and taken a quick glance when I was playing with him last weekend, but they were so packed with sand I hadn't really gotten a good idea of what was going on down there.  Today I got a much better look, and I think I've got my work cut out for me.  He's got fundamentally good feet, but he's got long heels, extremely chronically long bars, and is in need of some serious sole exfoliation.  In addition to all this he's three and has the attention span of a goldfish.  I tried to take this into major consideration and was patient, moved with him when he goosed, and gave him frequent breaks.  Between tackling his feet, I started working with him on moving in a circle on a line.  I've never had a horse that didn't know how to do this, and it was interesting to see how quickly he caught on.  His "circles" are still more like triangles, but he's getting better.  I halfway did his front two and decided to call it a day--he was being good and I wanted to end on a good note.  I could tell his patience was wearing thin, and so we stopped.

Front right before I touched it.  This is the worse of the two.  You can see the long bars and super long heels.  But you can also see he's got good feet hiding under all that!

Front left, after some work.  I took down the bars and heels some more and brought back the toe quite a bit after this.  I'll post better "after" pictures later once his feet look presentable.

After going for a bike ride, getting house chores done and taking a delicious nap, I went out and caught Onyx again.  Today he would be going for his first "out" adventure.  I also decided I wanted to put my light Wintec english saddle on him to see how he did with something other than the bareback pad.  I was surprised how nonchalant he was about the ordeal, and simply continued trying to eat the weeds that border the driveway.  I cinched up the girth and prepared for some kind of reaction and got none.  Off we went, and our departure was accompanied by desperate whinnies from Jasper who was less than thrilled with being the odd man out.  Luckily, Onyx didn't answer and seemed curious and interested in the sights and sounds.  Everything went really well until we reached the end of the road where the flock of evil, horse eating sheep live.  They had been waaay out in the pasture when we approached and apparently thought we were a food provider because they came running and thundering in.  Onyx had his head and tail flagged as high as they could go and was doing the roaring snort at the herd.  Things were looking fine, albeit a little tense, until the neighbor dogs decided to come barking up from down the road.  This was about the limit of poor Onyx's brain capacity, because he started circling and prancing and acting like he was going to try to make a break for it.  The owner finally came out and called the dogs, and I tried to pretend like this was all no big deal while we continued down the road.  Onyx did eventually calm down enough and we made it back home without incident.  I'm hoping that's not the only thing he remembers from his first outing, because most of it was pretty good!

Onyx spots the sheep. He did very, very well for his first time in a "real" saddle.  We even did some trotting (jogging), and he was unfazed.

The source of the angst. I'd be scared, too.

I'm looking forward to this view in the future!

Onyx looking much more relaxed and forward.

Our really tall shadows.