Ride 70 - First bareback canter (video)!!

 After working my butt off all day I decided to hop on Chrome for a few minutes just to see if he was sore after trotting so much yesterday.  He wasn't!  Yay!  The ride was only fifteen minutes long because I noticed a bloody spot between his cheekbones on his throat and I freaked out!  Luckily it was just a swollen tick that he had squished.  Hubby removed it and we cleaned and treated it.  Poor guy!  I need to coat him in fly spray apparently.  I forget that just because the flies are gone doesn't mean the ticks are.... sigh.

Anyway, back to the ride.  I just hopped on him bareback with a halter and lead rope since it was going to be a short ride.

Wanna know what the yellow and white thing is?  Check out this video...


Yep they are huge hay tarps.  He had never seen them before (we got them today and put them out to dry before covering the hay), but he had no problem at all.  In fact I was only asking him to walk between them. He's the one who wanted to walk on them!!  At the end of the video when I started to talk I was saying I hope he didn't make a hole in them lol.  He didn't.  Chrome is going to be an awesome CTR horse!!

After that I was riding him around, then started trotting him to make sure he wasn't sore and then I did this...


Sorry the video is crap.  It's from a cell phone and it totally messed up in my video editor.  I tried twice to fix it before I gave up.  Oh well.  You can see that he cantered with me on him bareback and in only a halter and lead rope!  We have come a long way with my confidence!  I'm so proud of him.  I actually cantered him twice.  Hubby didn't get video the first time so we did it again.  :)  He was ducking his head and I reverted back to pulling him up... oops... I have to stop doing that.  I have to chant to myself, he is not bucking, he is not bucking lol.  For some reason it really feels like he is because his head is normally up so high.  The feeling is even worse bareback!  Oh well, we had fun!

After that I let him lick on the salt block, while I enjoyed the gorgeous weather and warm breeze.

 One of the things I love about bareback lol.

He is soooo cute when he gets zoned out over his salt block.  :D

LOVE those white eyelashes!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway!  I'm going to draw winners tomorrow.  No one has requested the endurance plate, so if someone doesn't snatch it up I'm putting it on my car lol.

Also please check out the Ponies in Pink contest over at Racing to Ride and vote for your favorite!!!

ACTHA Obstacle Frog in Pond - Video

 I decided not to ride Chrome today.  I figured one more day off after his trim wouldn't hurt since he had so much taken off (not to mention if gives my chafing another day).  It seems like every time his angles change in his feet I see the changes in his stifles.  It's almost like they have to readjust again.  Hard to explain, but the day wasn't wasted because we worked on our Competitive Trail Riding obstacle training.

His hoof trimmings, which Jackal loves to chew on.  :)

First I had to dig out and rinse off my wading pool.  Then I filled it with clean water.... not that you can tell.  Ducks make water so nasty and the wading pools apparently weren't cleaned very well before we stored them lol.

Dirty wading pool.

Then I had to gather ammunition!  We got pebble sized ones, a medium sized one and a fairly big one to make different sized splashes.

Then here is the result...



Obviously we practiced from the ground first.  I don't think I've ever thrown anything into water near him before so I wanted to see his reaction.  He did awesome!  The reason he stepped away the first time I threw the biggest rock in is because the water touched him.  Before the water splashed against him he didn't care at all (other than being bored and wanting to go back to grazing).  I threw the big rock two more times and he didn't mind at all.  I'll practice this again tomorrow before mounting up and trying it.  I'll get video again.  :D

Sorry the video isn't very good.  You might want to turn the sound off.  I didn't realize the wind was that loud!!  So annoying.  It's been blowing for days and is getting on my nerves.  :(  Even worse the wind is cold!  I'm so ready for spring to be here for real lol.

So I think Chrome aced the first obstacle!  Standing still is the hard part hehe.  I think the reason he reacted to the water touching him is because he hasn't been bathed in almost a year.  Another reason I can't wait for it to warm up again!!!!  I'm looking forward to trying this from his back tomorrow.

P.S. I LOVE that I had all those rocks in a plastic bag on a windy day and he didn't care at all, even when I threw them to the ground.  :D  I don't miss the days of having a horse who was scared of plastic bags (well it was actually my sister's horse, but you know what I mean).

Competitive Trail Ride Obstacle Training

Sorry once again, no pictures!  I realized something the other day... I haven't done any training on the obstacles in CTR and Chrome is almost five, which is the age you can start competing.  I don't have the money to compete right now, but I don't want him to not be trained when I do have the money so I need to get started on that now.  Besides you spend more time training for a sport than actually competing and the training is the fun part, so what am I waiting for?

So what I've decided I'm going to do is write down all of the obstacles listed on the ACTHA website here https://www.actha.us/obstacles and pick one each week to work on.  I don't want to be in a hurry or push him too hard so obviously if a week isn't enough time I will extend it.  Some of them we can already do so there's no reason to spend more than a week working on them.  Even if he already knows one I want to work on variables since each competition can vary on each obstacle.

So here is the list of obstacles (you can see descriptions on the website):

360 Degree Turn/Spin
Animal on the Run
Back
Down Bank
Up Bank
Barrel Board Pinwheel
Bridge
Campsite
Canter
Close Encounters
Curbside
Dismount
Don't feed the bears!
Don't spray me!
Downhill
Drag
Frog in Pond
Gate
Hat Pick Up
Jump
L-Back
Labyrinth
Mailbox
Mount
Noise Control
Perfect Picture
Poles
Recycle
Sidepass
Raincoat
Spanish Pole
Spider Web
Squirt
Stop
Straight Arrow
Tarp
Trot Transitions
Trot Weave
Turn on Forehand
Turn on Haunches
Uphill
Vine Simulator
Wagon Wheel
Water Obstacle
Wildlife Box

Some of these are going to be tough like the up and down banks because I don't have access to any, but I'll figure it out.  I'm going to choose one for this week, but I'm all for you guys chiming in with whichever one I should work on next week!  I'm thinking for this week I want to work on Frog in Pond since I already have a wading pool and it will be a fun way to celebrate turning our outside water back on after a long winter of hauling water from the well house hehe.  If you decide to chime in on our choices keep in mind right now I don't have any cavaletti poles!  I'll let you know when I have some available.

I'm going to tag these posts with CTR Obstacle Training, so you can always choose that tag in the labels in the sidebar if you want to review the posts as we make progress through them.  :D