Home, Rides 1 and 2

Shamrock is home! 

He traveled great, it took a few minutes for him to load because he'd never seen a ramp before, but he sniffed and took a step, and sniffed and took a step and paused every now and then before ending up in the trailer, nice and calm.  It took around 45 minutes to get to my cousin's house.

Once there, we put Shamrock in her grass arena, and he enjoyed the grass momentarily.  Then he realized that there was a horse and two donkeys out in the main pasture that surrounded the arena.

Clifford came over to see Shamrock.  He wasn't impressed and promptly left to gather up his two donkeys to keep them away from Shamrock.

Shamrock obviously wanted Clifford to come back, so he trotted and cantered around the ring a couple of times.

But then he decided he'd rather graze, so that's what he did...after a few hours we let him out with Clifford and the donkeys, where they all ran around a lot, just to run, no fighting or anything.  Eventually they settled down and everyone pretty much ignores Shamrock now. 

He moved on Sunday and I rode him Monday and Wednesday.  He was a really good boy both days, a little lazy, I think because he ran so much the day before and also because I was asking him to accept light contact, which he really isn't into at this point.  

So the next ride we did in hand work prior to going into the hot sun.  We did some flexions on the ground as well as worked on turning on the haunches and forehand, and sidepassing.  This seemed to help when I did ask for light contact for our ride.  But I still rode mostly on a loose rein, alternating between posting and 2-point until my legs were tired.  Then we cantered a couple of large circles in each direction and called it quits.

After the ride I cleaned his sheath, which he was really good for after some initial wariness!