We went for a short walk! (Pictures and video of Chrome's fancy trot!)

Wow Blogger uploads picture waaaay lighter than they actually are.  The above picture on my computer is so dark it looks like a silhouette, but on blogger it's so light!  Odd!  Notice his oily haunches?  That's from the MTG I'm using to treat his rain rot, so ignore his oiliness in the rest of the pictures lol.

I took Chrome for a short walk down the road just before dark (okay my hubby was leading him so I could get pictures) because the neighbor was doing some work and I wanted to see how he would react to the bulldozer.

 He spends most of his walks with his head down and relaxed.  He had a major overstep (his hind hoof was stepping a whole hoof length in front of his front hoof!) today and was moving out so well!  I think he's missed his walks.

Then he started looking around.... but not at the bulldozer.  He didn't even look at the bulldozer.  He was staring at a couple of horses that were about a quarter mile across that pasture... silly colt!

Check out this short video of him walking and looking at the other horses and then at his fancy trot as he shows off...


Here is the direct link in case you can't see embedded videos:  http://youtu.be/5HNKq9-fILU

He is so gorgeous!  I really need to stop encouraging him to show off for other horses though because that could make our trail rides... interesting.  :)  Here are some poor quality snapshots from the video of his all four off the ground trot for those of you who can't watch it.

I love this horse!  He can look so fancy when he wants to!

And here are the rest of the pictures.

In this one (above) my husband left the blue rope hanging off of Chrome's haunches so I could get a picture without someone in it.  Chrome is standing in the middle of a road, with one leg cocked, completely at ease with a bulldozer just yards away (see it in front of his chest and yes it was running, shoving dirt and rocks in a pile, which was loud!).  He's only interested in the other horses that are specks in the distance lol.  He couldn't care less about some dumb loud bulldozer.  :)

One armed hug from my hubby.  His expression is weird because he was talking lol.

Thanks everyone for the comments!  I've missed hearing from you guys and it feels nice to know we were missed a little.  :D  I'm slowly catching up on reading blogs and I'll try to start posting more.

Rain Rot

All of these pictures are old ones.  I didn't want to post without pictures, but I don't have any new ones, so there you go lol.  The weather has cooled off and we're almost done building the house, so I'll have more free time soon.... I was going to ride Chrome today and discovered that he has rain rot.  :(  Sucks!  So I scrubbed him all over with MTG (and punched a hole in my glove which got nasty MTG all over my hands so now they smell like sulfur.... yuck!).  Hopefully it will clear up soon.  Send fungus free healing thoughts for my boy please.  I'm probably going to start hand walking him on the roads and longeing him again until the rain rot heals, then I'll start riding him on the property and then I'll try riding out on the roads again (wish we had real trails).  I'll let you know how it goes.  Reading my blog friends' posts about riding out alone has given me the courage to give it a shot.  I can't wait!

Isn't he handsome?  I can't wait to get some new pictures of him.  :)

 

Ride 35 & Pathetic Mane

 We were busy working on our house again this weekend, but today the weather was just too gorgeous to pass up a short ride on Chrome!  My husband walked with us on foot for a short ride down the road, but he didn't have to grab the reins or anything.  Chrome was so good!  At the gate we paused for a look around, because he thought the neighbors still had horses across the street, but they were moved a few weeks ago.

He was very excited, but completely under control.  I never once felt like he would bolt or do anything dangerous, so I'm hoping solo trail rides will be in our future soon.  It was just a short ride to the neighbor's house where we stopped to chat for a few minutes.  Chrome was sooooo impatient while we were talking!!!  I need to work on his standing still again.  I think part of it was boredom and part of it was because he's so itchy from his sweet itch.  When he's moving he can ignore it, but when standing still all he has to think about is itching.  I can totally related.  The mosquitoes have been biting me like crazy this year.  He was walking circles, swinging his head all over the place and even tried pawing at one point!  I distracted him by making him walk through a mud puddle that he wasn't too excited about walking through lol.  We eventually went over it.  :)  The ride was around 27 minutes long, but most of it was standing around in the neighbor's yard.

 When we got back and I turned him loose he threw himself at a tree and started scratching.  Notice his front hoof is off the ground to really dig his shoulder into the tree?  That's why he has sores on his shoulders.  I hope we can find a solution for his sweet itch before next summer.

 Look under Chrome's belly at who decided to nose around while Chrome was busy scratching lol.

Look how exhausted he is because I rode him soooo hard lol.  Just kidding.  This is him trotting to his hay.

And now I have a decision to make..... what do I do with his mane??

It's worse than it was last year!!!  Should I just roach it??