Yesterday's Ride

I got back from NYC late Sunday night, and went out the barn yesterday afternoon. We are finally experiencing true November weather for Minnesota, which means the temperature has dropped about 20 degrees. Because Werther got his hocks injected last week, he basically has had a week off. This combined with the recent cold weather made me a little nervous. He was very good to catch in the paddock, and moved quickly to get inside instead of his usual stop and stall routine. He was a little fidgety in the cross ties, but he did not do anything that raised any major red flags. My first true indicator of how fresh he was was when I was trying to get on. He would not stand so I could get on, Andre was riding Vinny, so she came down to my end of the ring, to help me pen him in a little so I had enough time to get my left foot in the stirrup and my right knee on the seat of the saddle so I had enough balance to get him stopped so I could finish swinging my leg over. He had impulsion at the walk, but he did not misbehave himself. When we started to trot however, he wanted to be very quick, and found excuses to spook forward at little noises. When I trotted him around for awhile and he did not really settle down I asked Andre to get on him canter Werther around. I took Vinny from Andre and untacked him for her, than went to watch Andre with Werther. Werther was cantering around like the engerizer bunny, closer to a hand gallop really. Andre had the reins very relaxed, and was not doing circles with him, but every so often she would do a flying lead change on the diagonal and change direction. She said he did not offer to buck, which was a relief to me, before I got Werther, I tried a horse from a rescue who after we got him fit and feeling good would buck really hard when you asked him to go on the right lead.  I got on and walked out Werther for Andre, he was tired but that did not stop him from being anxious about being the only horse in the ring and whinnying like something out of the movies. Andre and I decided that during the winter he is going to chased in the indoor once and week to blow off some extra steam.