Happy Memorial Day! - Ride 154

We went for a fun, short ride around the property today as our way of celebrating the holiday.  The ride was shorter than I intended at twenty-twenty five minutes because someone showed up and interrupted the ride.  I was irritated, but it was probably for the best since Chrome is so out of shape.

I was going to work on walk/trot transitions, but Chrome's right stifle gave out with every downward transition.  After the ride I looked at his hooves and his toe on that side is getting too long so it's time for me to rasp them again.  I'll do that before the next ride and see if it makes a difference.  It usually does.

Chrome gets excited about having neighbor horses across the street again.

After a ten plus walking warm up and a few failed walk/trot transitions I trotted him the entire length of the driveway.  On that downward transition his stifle didn't give out so I did it again and cantered him for a few strides.  After that his stifle never gave out again no matter what we did.  We trotted, cantered, backed up, turned circles, etc.  It's so weird how he seems to warm up out of it.  I just need to do his ground work again with backing, stepping over things, etc. to strengthen his stifles back up.  Time off just does not treat this horse well at all physically.  Mentally it's like we never took a day off.  He's such a good boy. 

Look at how fleabitten his cheeck is!

Other than the stifle issues, the one random fly and getting interrupted it was a good ride.

 Look how flexible my boy is!  his tail is touching the ground!!

Just ignore how filthy it is lol.

Well I guess..... the end!

Happy Birthday Chrome!!! - Ride 153

The dark spots on his shoulder is where his hair grew back in dark after he rubbed it out...

he actually doesn't have any open sweet itch sores on his shoulders this year so far.

Happy birthday Chrome!  Can you believe he's nine years old?  Where did the time go??  I spent a long time brushing him before these pictures, but I didn't bathe him until after our ride because he would have gotten sweaty and gross, making the bath pointless.  I rode for about thirty minutes, just casually around the yard.  Mostly walking with a little bit of trotting and cantering.  Please ignore my eq... I'm very out of practice.

LeeAnn standing on the fence cracked me up when I was looking at the pictures.  I was using a branch full of leaves to try to get Chrome's ears forward.  I was waving it around in my right hand and LeeAnn was standing on the fence watching longingly lol.  I wish I'd noticed her and I would have fed it to her after the pictures, but we were being attacked by buffalo gnats and I just wanted to run away.

He's going so gray!!

He would not stand square in any of these photos!  Grr! 

You'll notice he has a bonnet in some pictures and not others... he decided he didn't want to wear it and shook his head until it came off...

The neighbor across the street had removed his horses for a month or so.... and of course chose this day to turn them loose in the field again.... 

 His ears were touching the clouds!

 He was surprisingly calm even though they were galloping around right across the street.

 No clue why I was leaning forward so far... his enthusiasm caught me off guard lol.

 After the ride he got his bath.

Then I completely forgot to get pictures of him once he was clean!  Fail!!  Just trust me that he looked very handsome and white lol.  Sorry there aren't a whole lot of photos and that we didn't dress up fancy.  It was over ninety degrees and I was tired from lack of sleep.  I also shaved my goats and did a bunch of other chores.  I hope you enjoyed what few there are.  I'm still blown away that Chrome is nine.  It makes me sad that he's basically a pasture puff and that we never learned dressage or competitive trail riding together like I wanted to, but things outside of my control have prevented it.  Hopefully someday we can still do those things.  I'm choosing to focus on the positives instead.  Chrome is happy and healthy and I love him with all my heart and I get to see him everyday for hugs and scratches, so that's what is important.