New Kicks.

Went out to ride today around 3 ish. When we pulled up, Spirit was out playing with the others and seemed fine, but upon closer inspection we came to the conclusion that our farrier was right and he may need shoes, at least short term. I'm a big barefoot advocate, not one of those, "SHOE ALL THE HORSES!" types, but I do think some horses really need shoes and Spirit may be one of them..dreading the fee for it but looking forward to less lameness. We shall see when and if he really gets his new kicks. We're still hoping that he will be okay without them but right now mom's sure that he'll get them. She doesn't like shoes either but she likes healthy horses, obviously.

Anyways, we went and all of the horses were in front, yay, A and R pulled up right behind us which was awesome. Got Red on the lead and Tucker went after him and had a little fiasco. My first time in the middle of a horsey fight. :P Red freaked, which isn't normal. He typically just lays back but he wasn't expecting it. He ran in a few circles and pulled away from me. I ran after Tucker and shooed him away, then calmly walked to Red, held my hands out and called for him. Finally, he settled down and walked straight to me and refused to leave my side. No wounds, just a scare!! Red didn't go after Tucker but ran off which I think made it worse. :( I took him to the fence to tie him and he got lots of lovin'.

We ordered some stuff from Chicks before we left for Florida and got it from a wonderful neighbors house where they were getting our mail. :) Little things..two pairs of spurs, a clip for my breast collar so it snaps instead of fastens, some stirrup straps since I was borrowing A's after mine disappeared, and a new curb strap for Spirit. Got my breast collar and stirrups fixed!! Woohoo!! I no longer have super long stirrups and it was ah-ma-zing.

I somehow managed to tack this while lugging my saddle, pad, and breast collar to tack him up.He says, "please, no pictures. I am far too gorgeous for your silly blog."

While I was getting beefcake all tacked up, mom decided to walk Spirit to the barn and try to bridle him to see how he did. He really wasn't acting in pain so mom decided to hop on him bareback if he checked out. No limping, so she tried it. But more on that later...

Worked on Red's standing still while mounting. A and I went ahead on the trails while mom got Spirit-boy settled. She apparently mounted easily but stayed behind us for awhile since we got a head start.

I started using a pair of blunt spurs, like these:

 Because Red's been having some little issues with stubborness. Not to jab at him or anything, but when he acts up, just to give him a little poke. These are really mild. As far as I know, he's never been spurred, but I think he probably has. Can't say for sure. He didn't act up at all with them. I only had to use them, maybe, 3 times tops. Once at a hill we go down and twice in the front pasture that we rode in after the trail ride.

He did great with them, never acted up once and didn't seem fazed. He responded to them well so I'm excited.

A and I trotted around the back pasture a lot, the stirrups. Le sigh, they made such a difference. :) I also open reined today. I need to keep my reins lower and it helped a TON. Plus Red did SO much better with it and it allows me to sit deeper easier. They could still be lower but it improved drastically today.

Once we were done there and had ridden for about 30+ minutes we decided to head back since we hadn't seen mom for awhile..needed to check on Spirit. When we got back she was in the run in with Spirit. He had acted up a ton, she thinks it was mostly from not being worked for a few weeks because he didn't seem tender. :(

I took Red out to the front pasture since we had only ridden for a short period of time and rode around for another 30 minutes. Pretty easy work, only trotted a couple times and worked into a really fast trot.  His trot is about the speed of a typical Quarter Horse canter so we were booking it up the pasture. :)) He is always stubborn in that area because he wants in the run in but didn't fight me as much today as normal. The babies were loose in that pasture so that didn't help, but they stayed in the run in and never bothered us, as per usual.

Excuses are bad, but the only reason my reins are so high in this and I'm not open reining is because we were slowing to a stop and he was being a brat about it. :))

Later, A joined me. She had ridden Patches but switched out with Bay and rode her bareback.

Me: "I AM KING OF THE HILL!" Red: "Shut up mom, you are so, so, so embarrassing!!"

See my heels, they are DOWN. Woot.

And now, photo dump.

He looks so cute.

Muh hur.

Whata butt.

Going to the tree...

Around the tree..

I had one fail moment that I SO wish was caught on video. Red and I, we were running full force. All of a sudden he's like, "NO I MUST RUN INTO ALL THE THINGS" and ran me into a really annoying tree with very annoying, pesky limbs. Kinda like this tree:

And I literally had tiny sharp leaf thingies IN my shirt and IN my pants. Red wasn't fazed although R laughed at me. A lot. :( It was hilarious though.....although said sharp leaves really hurt when I trotted. LOL.

We played around for a few minutes then mom got on Red because she hasn't ridden him in months. Apparently she thought Red was still lazy and I was just having to push him a ton to get him going but as soon as she got on, Red proved her wrong. :)) He took off galloping with her. She claimed her canter felt like he was bucking. :( But she still admitting, AND I QUOTE: "He has a rough gait and probably always will but he's the best horse ever." IN YO FACE SPIRIT.

Took Redman back to the barn after about an hour+ ride and untacked, loved on him. Talked. Gave him a massage with the magnetic curry thingy that he adores and hung out.

"I refuse to put my ears up woman."

So yeah, fun day. :) He got to run around the barn because the stalls were all taken up but he loved it. He ran to each stall like "bahahaha I'm out and you areeeen't!!!"

Jericho is lame right now, not sure why, but we were checking on him and Red peeked his head through the stall next to me and kept trying to eat my shirt sleeve until I came out and gave him his treats. Attention hog.