Ride 101

I finally got to chance to ride with the neighbor girl B again today!!  Our schedules are so hard to coordinate, but we finally got the chance.  :D

There are no pictures from the beginning of the ride because.... Chrome is a psycho!!!  We've been riding at home all winter and I've only been riding every other week since I fell off so that's not nearly consistent enough for him.  I knew it would be an interesting ride before I ever got him out of the pasture because it was twenty degree cooler today than yesterday and it's been two weeks since I last rode (hubby has been sick and I've been stressed).  He was spooking at everything and I had to keep him on a tight rein.  The neighbor's dog decided to come with us too and Chrome spooked at that dog EVERY SINGLE TIME it disappeared in the trees and reappeared. Ugh!

Then B had to get off.  We were standing on the side of the road with a hill behind us.  As B was getting back on her mare the dog came over the hill and Chrome bolted!  He bolted onto the road and turned toward home.  He slipped on the pavement and stopped because he scared himself.  I think he was going to try to bolt for home.  It was terrifying and I totally cussed him out lol.  I apologized, totally embarrassed, but B was cool and thought it was funny because she was hanging off the side of her mare as she walked off down the road.  I'm so glad she didn't bolt after Chrome!

After that he didn't try to bolt again, but he did eyeball things and spook in place.  I had to keep the reins tight because he kept trying to trot to catch up with his girlfriend, but he wasn't jigging like she was thank goodness.  At the halfway point he finally calmed down and I let the reins out.  The last half of the ride was actually enjoyable.  When we got back to my driveway he kept going with minimal encouragement from me.

As we were walking he was behind the mare and lowered his head to sniff her feet, then he stuck his lip in the air in the flehman response.  He did it twice!!  It had us laughing so hard.  I have no idea what he was smelling.  At that point he was back on my good side lol.  The ride was 3.22 miles and an hour long.  When we got back to her place I dismounted and we stood around talking for probably another hour.  He was being impatient and circling every once in a while.  He wanted to the horses, to their water bucket and to their feed buckets hanging on the fence.  I finally realized he was pushing into me and making me move so I started making him back up whenever he got to close.  Turd.  That was a good lesson.

I had already loosened his girth so we walked the quarter mile back home.  You can see he was much more relaxed with me walking.

He actually sweated under the saddle instead of just his girth area!  I tied him up when we got home, brushed him, medicated a sore he has and then put him back in the pasture.  Then I mucked out the barn and put out hay for the donkey and goats (they can't reach over the hay ring when it gets below a certain point).  Then I started calling the goats because I hadn't seen them all day.  While I waited for them to walk to the front of the pasture I sat on Chrome's feed bucket and just soaked in some sunshine.  He was in the barn stuffing his face with hay because he thought two hours without eating was torture.  I heard something and looked back at the barn just in time to see Chrome explode out of the barn with his head in the air in this gorgeous ground eating trot.  There were a bunch of leaves blowing over the barn, but I thought it was kind of a weird reaction.  Then I realized it was big dust devil!!  There was no dust obviously, but instead it was like a mini leaf tornado.  It was actually really, really cool!!!  It went about forty yards and then spun in place in our pasture until if faded away.  It was probably thirty or forty feet tall.  The biggest dust devil I think I've ever seen in person.  I'm so happy I happened to be sitting out there to see it.  :D  I just wish I'd had my GoPro with me hehe.

So all in all it was a good ride.  I just need to get him back out on the road and ride more consistently.  I suck at riding in the winter, although I've done a lot better this year than previous years.  I hope you all are having great weather and even better rides!