As the title implies, I haven't been riding Camaro much in the past month. Too many things going on with holidays (ironically, DH said in November that he didn't want to be the 'Christmas present clearinghouse', but yet that's what our family made us into anyway. . .), and my back being hurt, and then to top it all off, I got sick last week.
So Camaro got to slack off for a few weeks. Which I'm pretty sure he saw as me neglecting him (in his nice toasty turnout blanket, and a new slow feed hay bag hung in his stall so he doesn't gobble his dinner hay too fast and then stand around bored half the night, and a new trace mineral block in his feed tub to encourage him to drink the right amount of water despite the crazy weather) because on the days I have been to the barn and gave him attention/exercise he acted like he'd thought surely I fell off the face of the earth and he'd never see me again. What a ham. I guess he does appreciate me. Or maybe it's that post workout sugar cube and peppermint he was missing.
Our rides have been low-key. Long warmups in walk, with lots of circles and changes of direction and bending lines. At trot we haven't been doing any long spans of trotting, more like a lap or two around the arena after our 10 minutes or so of walking warmup, and after that short spurts of trot interspersed with walk or maybe some trot/halt/trot transitions. No cantering under saddle lately, and not even on the longe in the past two weeks.
It's been weird weather; mid-December went from cold to super warm (like upper 60s) to frigid blizzard and high temps in the teens in the span of 36 hours. Then the next week we had another warm up, and a cool down closer to normal temps. And up, and down. Snow, mud, then bare frozen ground, currently thawing a bit and rain making a mess.
On the warm days, it's been super humid, and I don't want to work Camaro so hard that he ends up sweaty, which he tends to do if we trot much or canter. He takes quite awhile to dry when that happens, and he has no patience for standing in his stall in a cooler until dry. He yells and pretty much stays just active enough to perpetuate the damp sweat. I've toyed with the idea of clipping him in some fashion, which I've never actually needed to do with my prior horses, but I don't want him to end up cold even under his blankets if I clip him. Which means on the days I have been able to ride, I'm making up the working plan on the fly depending on the temperature and humidity.
Meanwhile, he's been shedding long hairs for a couple of weeks all ready. Enough at once that they are coating the cuffs of my gloves when I groom him and leaving a noticeable pile of hair on the cement floor of the barn aisle. Not sure if that's a sign that this winter is going to continue to be mild and Spring get here early, or if his brain decided to get rid of some that extra insulation that is making him wet when we work.
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