Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Cross your fingers

I am looking into moving Cody about an hour north of where he currently lives. To make that work, we are also looking into moving to an apartment complex closer to that barn. If all goes well (we have at least three apartments to go look at this Saturday) I will live 10 minutes from my horse instead of 30, he will have a stall that is open to a nice sized grassy paddock, and we will have an apartment that has a washer and dryer! I plan to do partial board so I can know just how much he is being fed and adjust as needed. I wrapped a weight tape around him tonight and it came out at about 840 lbs. I think he could easily stand to make it to 900 if not 950. I'll have to keep track to see how he does.

Tonight was the fourth time I have lunged Cody in side reins. I'm working on rigging up some shims so my saddle doesn't sit low in the front so I have just been doing stuff on the ground lately. He is on the thin side but I figure we can work on building some muscle in his topline to help him fill out. He's doing fairly well, just needs to reach down and forward a bit more, but we're getting there.

A couple weeks ago I was trying to hose him off and he was being a dork, something spooked him and he took off into a field that had an open gate. The rope dragging behind him and sometimes wrapping around a leg was totally freaking him out and he was running mad laps around the field. Once I got him to pay enough attention to stop I tossed the rope at his legs (like I've done a zillion times before) and that was no issue, he just didn't like it wrapping around his legs and/or dragging while he was moving. So...tonight I also clipped an old cotton leadrope to the top ring on the surcingle so that it was dragging along the ground as he trotted around. The first lap he freaked a bit but half stepping in front of him and saying whoa got him to stop for a moment and let his brain settle back into place. After that he trotted around and around with the rope dragging alongside him. He was often at a bit of an angle so he could keep an eye on the evil rope but all in all it went well. I think I'm going to do that a few more times.

I have been terribly lax lately in updating this blog about my goofball of a wild pony, but with all the hopeful changes coming I'm going to try and keep it more up to date :)

Wish us luck in the apartment hunt!