We Trotted!

Yet another night of scratches duty. None of the horses came up early for evening feedings. I think they were avoiding me! I didn't get a chance to soak anyone's legs to remove the scratches. I'm hoping the cream is at least soothing their scratches. I know they all seem a bit more relaxed afterwards.

I'm hoping tonight that I can soak at least Rain's scratches. He needs to get cured quick. He doesn't seem to be bothered lately by the scratches so hopefully he'll be rideable this weekend. I'm a bit leary of this upcoming ride. There's a bunch of water crossings, ditches, and terrain that I'm concerned about. Me riding my dependable Rain, I wouldn't think twice about it. But dad is riding flighty Rain (although I know what Rain will do before he does it) and Chaos who hasn't really had much exposure to tough terrain. Least to say I'm sure I'll be frazzled, frustrated, and exhausted.

On the bright side, with having the boys down in the boggy pasture, it gave me time to ride Maverick. I tried a different bit on him. I'd been using a full cheek snaffle on him. But I didn't get the impression he liked it or that it fit very well. I used the exact same setup for Chaos and it's fine on him.

So last night I decided to try out a couple different bits. I first tried the wonder bit. It's a wonder I even keep that thing around. It's too small. It's about 1/4 too small. So I switched over to a regular snaffle bit. There's no difference between the full cheek snaffle and this regular snaffle that I can tell but I got a better response.

But maybe it was the reins, his mood, my mood, the weather, who knows. So a few passes around the drylot and the big herd decides to finally come up. I figured they could stand around and wait for me and Maverick to finish. Poo poo to them!

I decided that I was tired of walking. I've tried to get Maverick into a trot before but it was always a no go. So I decided that I wasn't going to let up until I got at least two or three steps of a trot. Low and behold, Maverick went into a trot half way across the dry lot. It was AWESOME! So I kept trotting around the lot a couple of times. We went both directions.

Unfortunately the saddle I am using is all leather. So my butt kept sliding all over the place. I don't have the greatest balance so poor Maverick got to deal with my bouncing all over the place. But he was pretty willing to go into the trot. I'm excited! I'm beyond excited. I can finally do something more than a slow crawl around the drylot.

Don't get me wrong, going slow is good for both of us to figure each other out. But finally getting into a trot was amazing. I have more control and can get him to go in the direction I want while trotting WAY better than while walking. I think trotting makes him think a bit more about where he's putting his feet and which direction he's going. I know that's the case with Rain when I get him out and going down the road.

So hopefully I can get on and do a bit more trotting. I'd like to see if he has a couple different speeds of trot. I need to pull out the arena exercise book and see what types of exercises I can come up with. I know I should be happy with just walking and getting him to respond to my cues but trotting was so much fun. I think the more I ride him and the more trotting we do, the more confidence I'll have on him. Maybe sooner than later I'll atually ride him outside his small dry lot and in the bigger drylot!