Wizard Rides 526, 527, & 528: The Sunset

Thursday, 8/16/13

Before work, Wizard and I hit the trails. On our previous trail ride, I noticed that the perimeters of a few fields were mowed this week. The footing was dry and even, and the fields had good visibility… perfect for some trot and canter sets! All the way around, the field is about a half a mile. We went around it three times, doing a trot or canter on the long sides and walking the short sides. It was FUN! Except for one stumble, Wizard was quite light on his feet, and “on” the bridle. I always assumed he’d be a zoomy kind of horse when we began doing trot and canter work off the property, but he really is quite soft in the bridle and tends to slow down when he’s uncertain instead of rushing forward. It’s quite different from Alibar, who did everything quickly. We walked home and I gave him a nice hosedown before hustling in to the office.

Friday, 8/17/13

Epic Barn Day. Those are the days when you actually have a few hours to really get some things done at the barn. Baths. Or tack cleaning. Watching a friend’s lesson. Or just leaning over the fence watching your horse graze. Kris and I actually had the day off, so we declared Friday an EBD. We started our ride in the arena, and after some nice trot and canter work, Wizard and I took two separate lines of jumps twice each. First line was a placing pole to a cross rail to one stride to a second cross rail. Second line was a placing pole to a cross rail to one stride to a small vertical, maybe 2’3″. Kris was nice enough to take pictures, and got the really great picture of Wizard over the second jumping effort- I love how light and round he is. He’s really coming along.

After our ringwork, we hit the trails. We took the same field that I rode the day before, and cantered the far side. Wizard was much more “looky”- it sort of seemed like he was gawking at the white flowers that were blooming in the middle of the field. Tractors, deer, turkeys, those are all fine. But that silvery underside of leaves? Spooky stuff, sometimes. Same with certain white flowers. That’s okay- he gets a pass. He jumped like a star today. He was so good, in fact, that I scheduled a jumping lesson for next Friday. I’d love to take the next step forward with our jumping.

Here’s a neat photo evolution of Wizard over fences since 2009 or so…

Saturday, 8/18/13

Wizard and I hit the trails for a solo ride. He was looky again, and interestingly was best on the cross country field on the Horse Park. We just walked and trotted around the perimeter, but there was a lot of noise over the loudspeaker and he took it all in stride. We were out a little over an hour. We cantered on the long cantering lane, but walked the rest of the way. He listened, but had his ears on swivel and his eyes on lookout. We got back with plenty of daylight. On workdays, it’s beginning to become a struggle to get out of work in time to have light for riding on the trails. In a few weeks, we won’t have any light at all after work. But we’ll have awesome weather. The tradeoff of autumn.