Just Not Enough Hours In the Day-

My poor little blog has its first follower. I'd better get out and have some adventures! We had a family day just playing and working some with our horses on Fri and Saturday, then Sunday and Monday we went on a trail ride close to home I have to stay close till that grandson makes his appearance. Today was Vet day for Cheerio.

I found that my leather saddle fit Brad better than the borrowed half breed, he is sore from where the half breed was pinching him on the first two day of trail rides. Lately we have been riding him with a dressage saddle to move the pressure points till the soreness goes away.

I brought what will be Brads leather saddle inside to clean oil and condition, it had some needs: replaced four strings, and a rosette, put the rear cinch back on, shortened and turned the stirrups.

Made huge strides in Brads bitting problems. I'm sure parts of it are me learning him and vise versa. Parts are trust, he still seems to be looking for the other shoe to drop. But consistent handling and care seem to be a good remedy for that.

Found how immense Brads barn sour problem is and have set aside 3 days to experiment on repairs. Actually I was told that I can't get on him until we see how bad it is so I am ground support for this. Friday and Saturday my kids came out and rode him and things went very good, good enough we felt safe putting my grandson on him. Sunday we went on a little trail ride with the 8 year old riding him alone and he did perfectly.

There seemed to be problems with the bit hitting Cheerio's teeth, I ended up calling the vet and sure enough I had never had his teeth done. We had an appointment to rectify the situation. That boy was just having an off day, we had to stand in the trailer for 20 minuets waiting on the vet and he rocked the trailer the entire time, once being lead inside he looked like a wild man. You know its impressive when the vet starts telling you how beautiful the bond between the horse and you is because he followed you into something he was that scared of. Yes it was pretty, in the way horses are pretty with a bowed neck and snorting and shaking lol but then I guess he did follow me scared to death.

My sis and I have gym plans up to 4 days out, and I have a niece who is joining the Navy who is joining us. I'm getting ready to head out here in just a bit, this is going to turn out to be my Achilles heel, if I can get in enough gym time I think that this will be easy if I spend too much time here at the key board there is no hope. I feel safe in saying I will make a longride, but also I do not see any reason to borrow trouble I need to be in some sort of condition before I hit the trail and trust the trail will harden what the gym and local trial rides couldn't. I need to take at the least one or two trial weeks, just to iron things out and buy or loose items. I am going to focus on April but looking at the calendar that is pretty seriously optimistic.