Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Day 39

Our field trip to Cottonwood Creek Equestrian Center was lots of fun!  He rode in the trailer like a champ, and we spent about 2 hours playing at the arena.

Gail got to meet Doc, and her first words when she saw the wounds were, "Oh my God!!".  (I guess they are a little worse to look at in person?)  I am so used to seeing them that they actually look pretty good to me now!

Doc was again a very brave boy for our adventure.  He took right to the idea of the playground, and went over the wooden bridge without any problem.  He also thought the tire jungle gym was interesting, and without much coaxing, he even went through the cowboy curtain!

Thanks to Gail, our photographer  :)



Inside the arena, we explored everything:  the nice new dirt, the flag, the sweet smell of other horses' urine.... 


I let him go free in the arena for a while, and he mostly stuck to me like glue.  I had fun running the length of the arena with him trotting happily right beside me.  We did a little bit of the circling game, and also got a great start on going sideways at the rail.

Outside the arena, we played with the squeeze game some more:  in between buildings and rails, under the giant fallen tree, and under the barn overhang.  I think it will be important to be really good at that for Friday in case we have to get into stocks or something.



We also played some freestyle games in the round pen.  Doc got pretty frisky in there, and started to show me a little bit of attitude, so I made him run a little more than I planned on.  Because of his wounds, he has a bit of a bunny-hop on his hind end.  I hope that improves once the wounds are healed.

 
Standing tied without pulling anymore!
Thank you, Melissa and Robin for the information on how to predict his final height.  I still have to do the string test, but according to the test from the elbow, it looks like our boy might top out close to 17 hands.  Wow!  It's a good thing we like big horses!

~Jackie

No comments:

Post a Comment