Short Rides and Boot Problems

Lots of little rides lately. Trying to get into a routine I can hold when school starts, and not doing badly so far. Unfortunately Riv's Bestest Buddy is up at the barn for a while (hopefully he's not leaving!) and so my own dear Beastie is very anxious to get back to the barn. Overall he is being good though.

Yesterday he was feisty and wanting to trot-trot-trot (well canter would have been ideal, but mean mom said no), but none of the hills and fields we usually work on have been mowed recently, so we trotted round and round and round and round the outside of the outdoor arena till he was tired of it. Had the additional benefit of going past the Monster Hideout (brushy scary area beside the arena) many times, so hopefully he will be less spooky of that now. We'll see.

Today was a much more productive ride. We went to another smaller grassy area beside the covered arena and worked on spirals in and out at trot, and a little bit on transitions within trot. Of course we don't have a proper extended or collected trot yet, so pretty much it was just working on speeding up or slowing down when I asked. He was very good, though he leaned on my hands a bit. I am thinking the leaning is his way of trying to avoid working, since it only comes out when I ask him to actually do something. Ha. But besides that he was very good and listening well most of the time. Yay boy!

I am trying to get him fitted for boots, so we can hit more technical trails without running so much of a risk of bruising his feet. Yesterday our EasyBoot Glove fit kit came and so today I duly tried them on. Only to find that they were way too narrow, all of them. What?!?! Well I came home and discovered I had ordered the regular fit kit instead of the wide. Grrrrr...oh well. So now the wide is ordered, the regular is going in the mail tomorrow, and hopefully one of them will fit!