Third Ride Pictures & Answers

Disclaimer:  First I want to mention that I am not wearing a helmet in these pictures.  Please don't yell at me lol.  I wanted to get a nice photo of me riding Chrome so I didn't wear one.  I woke Chrome up from his nap (oops) and took him up to the barn.  He was very relaxed and being just as good as he was on day one so I went for it.  Don't worry I plan on always wearing a helmet when riding him and will only occasionally sit on him without one for pictures only.  :)

 

 He is soooo sleepy eyed in all of these picture lol.  I felt bad for messing up his nap.  I was having trouble keeping him standing still (since he doesn't know whoa when I'm on him yet) because all he wanted to do was mug the camera and play with anything he could get his mouth on.  I finally figured out the best way to make him stand still is to scratch him on his favorite spot on his neck and chest so I'm laying across his neck in a lot of the picture.  I think they turned out decent so that's fine.  Also as far as riding goes I wasn't on him long, just long enough to get pictures, so I don't know if this even technically counts as his third ride . . . :D  Here's the rest of the pictures.  Also I'll answer another question at the bottom of the post.

P.S.  I forgot to measure him for his progress report which was technically supposed to be on his birthday so I'll get it done tomorrow!  I'm curious to see if he made it to 15.2hh.  Cross your fingers!

 

He's still butt high . . . and he's sinking his back under my weight.  We will definitely have to work on long and low to strengthen his back.

 He kept getting caught with his eyes closed lol.

Neck scratchies!  Notice his head stretched up and tilted to one side and his cocked rear leg?  He was loving it!

 More scratches.  He goes off into a trance when I scratch his itchies.

More scratches.  And still relaxing his leg.  :)

 

 He turned his face out of the shot, but I actually for once like how I look in this photo so I kept it.  :D

 My feet hang below his belly soooo bad!!  I really hope he gets bigger.  :)

 Scratches.  He was practically falling asleep.  :)

 Hugs!

 More hugs!

This last one is when he tried to eat the camera lol.  :D  My husband managed to get this shot before getting covered in pony slobbers.

Okay, my question is from appydoesdressage over at Musings From LogDog Acres. She asked, "Even as a 3 year old riding more than a few times a week wouldn't hurt him. Have you had his knees xrayed to see if they have closed?"  My answer:  No, not yet.  The incident with the feed has me a bit strapped for cash.  It's not just his legs I worry about though, it's his back (did you notice how he dropped it so drastically under my weight) because the growth plates in their spine don't harden until as late as seven years old!!!  I'm just going to take it easy with him so I don't cause any long term damage or teach him to dislike being ridden due to muscle pain, etc.  I'm still going to do stuff on the ground with him like going for walks and learning stuff with clicker.  :D

If you have any questions feel free to ask.  I like answering them so I think I'm going to start adding my answers to interesting questions at the bottom of each of my posts.  :D  Thanks for all the awesome comments guys!  You all make blogging so worth it!