Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Groundwork - The Preflight Checklist

I got off early yesterday. Jessie had had her barefeet trimmed and I thought she might be tender to ride so Ranae let me ride Dusty. I took him out back for a bit of ground work. His LFR II is great. He has a quick rollback.

He's had some saddling issues so I decided to ground tie him. I got him saddled and he decided to take off. My saddle's back cinch most hit him in a different place or my long saddle strings scared him, but he started bucking. And, they were a couple of BIG bucks. I caught him easily and we went back out back to do some groundwork with the saddle on. We did about five minutes and he was calming down so we went out.

We trotted most of the way out and then I asked for a lope. Compared to Jessie's he's got an extremely smooth lope. It was like being in a rocking chair. It was in the mid 90's and humid as could be (it had sprinkled earlier). I kept him working and we had a real nice ride He didn't give me one problem out on the trail. It was a good experience to ride another horse.

My internet seems to be intermittent so I'm not sure if this will post...

2 comments:

Tuff e Nuff said...

We have a lot of bucking going on huh? LOL well at least you weren't on him. Have you considered getting boots for Jessie?

John Harrer said...

She's been barefoot all her life from what I've heard. I could have probably ridden her, I just thought it would be more considerate to give her a break and not ride her five hours after the trim. Usually the farrier comes out on Monday or Tuesday and we don't ride until Saturday, so it's rarely an issue.

And, she had done 18 miles over the weekend...am I getting soft on her?...getting?