Let’s ride Annie before it gets too hot. The first thing I do with Annie and Bo both, I write them both kind of the same way at the very beginning and then it gets very different. But I like to start by letting them know my feet are there. They’re both pretty lazy. They both are very leg trained. So like my spur, my leg, my foot, all the positions and pressure mean different things. So I start by making them stop with my feet and slow down to my feet and kind of remind them my feet are there by backing them up at the very beginning.
Now, Annie has been off for a while do she had an abscess, wee breader. There’s all these things. So I’m really trying to get her back into writing, but she hasn’t looked sound for the past few weeks. So we lunched her and she looked sound. But then now when I’m riding her, I could feel where she was landing really hard on that front left. And so I did literally one try, Hot Circle, and was like, you know, I don’t think we’re there. I don’t think she’s quite ready. So I already had, you know, the vet coming out on Wednesday, so I’m have him look at her. But as of today, you know, I got to do a trot circle. I really love writing Andy, but I don’t wanna, you know, push her if she’s not completely sound. So this was my one little jog circle that I got to do. Just kidding. We’re gonna ride Bo instead because Annie’s not ready, which is why the vets coming out on Wednesday. But she looked fine lunging this morning. So we wanted to try, but I’m not gonna keep riding her if she’s not 100% sound. So Bo came to the rescue once again and he’s just the greatest boy. So I just did some posting trot around cuz it’s kind of just for exercise, nothing serious. I wasn’t making him coat like, you know, too far out in a big trot or anything. He’s a little western boy. So at one point he could do like the pleasure driving trot and he was really cool. But he’s 24 years old now, a little older. One thing was, which is funny cuz he’s 24 years old, he was a little spooky today. So I don’t know if you can see by me. There’s that big plastic in the window and it had like, I don’t know, broken and it was, the wind was whipping it today so super loud and he was not having it. Like if you want a little bit of a close up, it was like, I mean, look how far it was opening. So yeah, he, at least I was on him and not somebody that was truly spooky or I would have been screwed. And then we did a little loping. Now, a lot of y’all say he looks crippled, looks terrible. I truly couldn’t care less. He’s 24. He still moves great for his age. If you don’t understand it, that’s fine. But he is doing a 3 beat there. And then we came down to the little jog. Gonna change directions. Now, one of the things that I like to do with bow specifically because bow likes to really like lay in with his shoulders, like he likes to go the opposite way that they’re supposed to go. So I do like to counter canner him quite a bit. So here you can see I loped him off on the correct lead. But here in a minute, I lope him through the center. And then I counter camera, meaning I go the opposite direction and I lope him on, quote unquote, the incorrect lead. So that helps engage his hind end, helps kind of keep him on his toes where he doesn’t anticipate which way to turn. Because when you’re just going in a circle over and over again, sometimes they can start turning, you know, preemptively, which means they’re dropping their shoulder and they’re just not listening to you and they’re not using their bodies correctly.
So I like to countercanner all of my horses. It builds tons of muscle, makes them more agile, keeps their brain, you know, thinking about different things and they don’t just know what’s happening next. So I love loping around on bow. It’s one of my favorite things ever.
I also decided to practice his forehand turns. In the last video I showed you a spin, which is where you pivot around the backend, like the backend stays stationary and then the front end moves around the back end. This time the front end stays stationary and you move the back end around it. That’s called a forehand turn. The forehand stays still, but then he decided to go ahead and spook on me like he’s never seen a truck drive by before. So that was fun. So we just ended after that with a little walking and a couple jog laps. Like, seriously, what an actual goofball that he acted like. Like there’s a truck that drives by every single time I ride. I think it was that plastic that had him on edge. Not gonna lie, though, he’s still the best boy, 10 out of 10 every time. So other than spooking, thank you for the ride, Bobo. I’ll see you again on Wednesday. How about that?