Another day, another date

Since Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday are generally my most flexible days, I headed up to visit Bentley again today. His paddock gate was the only one of the three open to the pasture, but he came in and stood at the stall door, watching me put down my helmet, gather up the grooming supplies, and  come in to see him. No hint of avoidance; I was pleased.

I groomed him and put the saddle on, but when I produced the bridle he wasn't thrilled to see it. So I led him around the arena with halter and lead rope for a bit; when I presented the bridle again he was fine with it. I mounted and rode at the walk for 30 minutes, asking him questions about bend, moving laterally off either leg, halting, stretching. Mostly I'm interested in being able to get and maintain a conversation through the reins; going faster than a walk before that becomes more reliable seems ill-advised, IMO.

Walking around the arena will soon get boring, though, and won't do much to improve his fitness. I took a photo today to document the fat deposits on either side of his tail so I can look back and hopefully see progress.

On Sunday when I have more time, I'm going to try lunging him, both to increase activity and to get some idea of this guy's gaits.

After we were done and Bentley was turned back out, I took some photos of him in the sunshine. He came my direction to get a drink, so I stepped through the gate and asked him to come to me one last time. He did!

In Lance "news," my mustang man got a good grooming this morning, and this evening Rick built and installed a new timer system for the hay steamer. Until now, I've had to set a timer on my iPhone when I started the steamer, then go down an hour later to unplug the steamer, then wait at least 20 minutes for the hay to cool so I could feed. Since there isn't enough time in the morning for that process, I have to do it twice in the afternoon/evening; once for their supper hay, and again for their next morning's breakfast hay. Not only is that a lot of running back and forth to the barn (hey, I feed my FitBit!), it also limits our afternoon/evening freedom.

With this new timer set-up, the steamer shuts itself off. Woot!