We Canter All The Time!

 Maybe not every minute of every ride, but we are cantering a whole lot more in the last few weeks.  A year ago, we didn't canter at all under saddle, for various reasons.  Now, canter is even part of our warm up.  Canter departs are almost spot on. Depart left is great.  Depart right we alternate between tension and rushing, or being calm and just popping right into it nice and round. The canter itself is calm, balanced and feels beautiful to ride.

The scary end of the arena is not so very scary anymore, in fact, last week we even cantered (calmly) through it!  Things are finally starting to feel like they did last summer before my knee went wonky.

We're also doing little bits of shoulder in to the left and to the right at the walk.  It's better to the right, and the leg yield off the right leg is also better than to the left.  I need to do some thinking on that--is it my body or is it his?  Most likely mine.  So, so many things boil down to rider position being not spot on.

This week, we're on a short break from riding.  You see, Camaro decided to rip his left front shoe off in his stall on Friday morning.  *sigh*  I'd like to think he was practicing crossing his legs for lateral work and just stepped on himself, but it was most likely a spat of idiocy brought on by the horrendous gale force winds we'd had since the afternoon before.

Shoe, a wee bit bent.

Note chunk of foot still attached to shoe :-(

This is where that chunk of foot came from.

Nice nail tracks, bud. Couldn't you have let those nails slide straight out?

Thankfully (luckily??) he just tore off some wall, and didn't get into anything sensitive.  Also thankfully, although we've been complaining a ton about it, every single turnout is nice gooey mud still, so he's not been sore at all like he might have been if the ground was hard.  He wears front shoes because he's a bit thin soled, so I was pretty worried about having him run around with a shoe off  for a few days.

So far, so good. We're not riding until that shoe goes back on because I don't want to risk making him sore by even walking around with the weight of a rider on his back.

His farrier is due tomorrow for the regularly scheduled 6-week trim and reset, so I was really really hoping we'd make it through without having to put in an emergency call on Easter weekend.  Now the question will be is there enough structure left to get nails back into securely?  We'll find out in the morning. . .