Fortnight Plus One

Yep, yesterday was officially Salem's Two-week-iversary! It's hard to believe that he's been at our barn for that long already. Of course, he got carrots and peppermints...but that's the usual routine, so to Salem it was just another day.

OK, on to the good stuff. Yesterday, I got out to the barn fairly late, so we did a long longeing session and focused on voice commands and transitions. The only sticky part was the transition from trot to walk, as Salem would lose focus and just keep trotting. No big deal, we can work on that. We also spent some time on trot poles, which I think he is really enjoying. However, the big goal for the day was to get some crisp canter departures, since we had an issue with those the other day. Luckily, Salem passed that exam with flying colors.

Today, I decided to put on some little baby nubbin spurs, like these:

And, let me tell you, even though they're tiny spurs, they made a huge difference. Our trot work went very well and we did lots of transitions, circles, trot poles, and serpentines. Salem was in work mode and listening well. The one time he tried to side-pass/half-pass-thingy towards the barn, I tickled him with the right spur and he said, "Yes, ma'am -- to the left we shall go, and I shall henceforth continue on as straight as an arrow, my liege." Mission accomplished.

The real difference, however, was at the canter. I think it just made things a bit more clear to him. The first time I asked for the canter, Salem said, "Oooohhh, canter! So that's what you were asking me to do the other night! Let me tell you, it was completely lost in translation -- maybe it's your goofy East Coast/Midwest/South Florida accent, but I had no clue what you were tryin' to say to me, lady! Yes, yes, I will canter for you! And I will pick up the correct lead immediately and even give you a beautiful, crisp departure! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!"

I did bring my camera out and was supposed to have a photographer snapping away during our ride. This is where I would, ideally, be posting the pictures. However, said photographer decided that it would be way more fun to run around and scream and cavort with little kids. Yeah, I guess that does sound slightly more fun. However, I do have a few other random pics that I took today.

First, Salem's hoof-ies. The farrier was supposed to come out and trim them today, so I took a bunch of Before pics. Unfortunately, the farrier didn't make it, so the Afters will have to wait until tomorrow.

Not too pretty, huh? Courtney said he was last done on September 18th, so that means it's been about five weeks. However, the ground is very hard down here (tons of coral rock), so maybe that's why they're so chipped up and yicky-looking. Let's move on, shall we?

Sorry, I know the video is very difficult to see! I figured it's better than nothing and I will take some better video (in actual light, lol) later this week. And maybe I can actually cajole someone into taking riding pics/videos *cough, cough Jennie* ;-) sometime soon!