Living on the edge

I decided to ride Beefs today, even though it's Quarter Horse day. Okay, so that probably doesn't make sense to you. Don't get me wrong, I love the shorties. However, Quarter Horse days mean lots of match racers (match racers fall into a completely different category from normal Quarter Horse trainers and the two shouldn't be compared to each other). Match racers usually means that for one horse, about twenty people come to get it ready to run. You figure anywhere from three to five people per vehicle which means a truck and trailer (that they usually don't know how to pull and hit the curb by our barn with) along with anywhere from four to six other vehicles. This isn't that big of a deal except for the fact that a large percentage of them drive about a hundred miles an hour through the barn area with their music blaring and the base bumpin. Therefore, you risk a certain death riding in the barn area when they're around. Because they flat out don't give a shit.

    Love him!

*They also have a tendency to get into fights during the races and try to kill each other. I'll never forget the time about forty of them got into it. They were beating the hell out of each other. Most memorable was the fifty-ish woman in the middle of it all, holding the hair of a girl in her early twenties and punching her in the face. Apparently the entire war was over a $100,000 side bet. Yeah, it gets pretty classy on quarter horse day.

Anyway, it's supposed to rain today and the ground is already crappy from the last time. I have a lesson on Monday and who knows if I'll be able to ride again before then. I didn't have much choice but to take my chances. Fortunately, Beefs and I lived.

Rub his poll and he sticks his tongue out :)

He started out pretty lazy today (and yesterday). Maybe the Back on Track really is getting him to relax. Yesterday, it was hot and muggy so his sluggishness didn't surprise me. Today it was cooler, so I was expecting him to have a little more energy. Nope. Time to put the spurs back on. The good part about this is that he is starting out relaxed instead of it taking twenty minutes for him to chill out. Considering that a month ago, I was lucky to get him to relax at all, I'm not going to complain.

We walked on a loose rein for about ten minutes, focusing on staying forward and bending around my inside leg. Then I picked up the reins and we worked on leg yields, serpentines, and quarter turns on the haunches. Then we picked up the trot and started off with some serpentines and more lateral work. He wasn't putting much effort into it at first, but by the end of our ride Beefs was very forward, loose over the topline, and swingy. I didn't canter because the footing was still boggy in some places. 

Not sure I'm loving the white on black, but it's better than I thought it'd be.

I do think that the BoT pad has made a small difference the last two times I've ridden Beefs. He has been much more agreeable. He is looser from the beginning. Considering he just had the laser therapy, I would expect him to be better anyway. I'll have to wait to use the pad more before I can get a better idea of how much it helps him. It certainly doesn't hurt.