Casted clogs pt 2

Yoshi chipped the front of one of his clogs a week ago. 

I texted a picture to the farrier and got a quick response. After dealing with several farriers over the years of solo horse ownership who wouldn't return calls or couldn't be bothered to come out for one horse, this was a relief. He said as long as it didn't chip more it was fine. 

However, this Monday I noticed that the right one had loosened up considerably. A bath confirmed this, I could hear him squelching around with water between some part of the set up and his foot after I bathed him. 

This time he said we needed to address it and that he could come out in two days. It wasn't super convenient since it meant I'd be awake holding Yoshi instead of sleeping before an overnight shift, but the horse comes first. Especially because when I jogged him in a few circles (not really intentionally working on that exercise...), he looked pretty darn sound. If it is working, I don't want to mess with it!

We did a lot of in hand work on Monday - walk, halt, trot, halt, back, ToF. Trot with me on the right side was really confusing and not possible, which is why we ended up trotting a few circles. My lead rope is ridiculously long, so when he claimed he couldn't possibly trot with me on the right I backed up away from him and mini parallel lunged him to the right. The next time he could figured out it was in fact possible. Halt is not very prompt still and he definitely wanted to curve around me and slow down to a halt even from the walk. It didn't help that we were working in a new field so he kept wanting to spin and stare across to the neighbors place - every horse spooks at their yard, it must contain demons. 

We tried to add in some turn on the haunches, per Emma's blog. It was really, really challenging to move the front feet and keep the hind still. We got a few steps of side pass that I praised a lot since any progress is progress. 

He has retained the lesson that he can be touched anywhere with my hand and should not protest. He even seems to think it might be pleasant now, my how a week changes things! We worked through a few of the conditioning exercises: 

I LOVE these pull out cards, so handy

He really loved the TMJ massage and relaxed into it with lots of licking and even a big yawn. The lateral cervical flexion he also appreciated and gave me really good responses there. No real reaction from the tail pull. 

Today was more of the same. It started early, watching/videoing Presto at Majestic Oaks because I creepily responded to an instagram story Amanda posted asking if she had any friends close by who could video Presto while he schooled this morning. Does reading about Presto's adventures on your blog and following along on instagram count as being friends? Yes, yes we decided it does. It was a lot of fun to watch him jump around. In other ways of getting my horse fix, I also signed up to volunteer at the Majestic Oaks schooling show this weekend. My comfort zone positions of jump crew or jump scribe were already full, so I'm doing dressage warm up. Maybe some day I'll be able to use the schooling passes I keep earning! 

He's a quick study and our faux showmanship went much better this morning. He was pretty quick on his halts and trotting off and much more focused overall. After working on that for a while, a good grooming, and an application of lime-sulfur dip, we went for a nice hand graze with two friends and their horses. He nipped my friends horse (also a 7 yo thoroughbred) twice. Just nips, just wanting to play. I wonder how he keeps getting beat up in the pasture... such a pest! He also tried to go up to the other horse, who just so happens to be the one that tried to kill him in the pasture, and do the same. Uhhh no buddy, that's a bad life choice. 

Pre-nipping friend on the ass, looking so innocent

At least he's cute