Steve and the poop

Steve came with me today, not to ride but to hang out and do some mucking of stalls.  He watched me tack up Willy, commenting on how fuzzy Willy was.  He has that goat hair under his chin and Steve thought it was cute.  We called him the Willy Goat.  Once I was done with tacking up I mounted Willy and Steve went to work cleaning the wash rack area that had three piles of manure on it, not Willy's.  Then Steve worked on Riddles stall and another stall too.  Another older man was there and mucking the mini's stall and Willy's.  He apparently was a trainer that was working on some of the horses at the ranch.  Steve and the older guy were talking while doing one of the runs and mentioned how much hay was wasted here.  It seems that big bales of hay are just placed on the ground in the pens and most of the hay ends up wet in urine and poop.  Also the twine for the bales has always been left on and it littered the whole property.  Not a safe environment for the horses!

I rode Willy around the big arena, not working on anything in particular just getting nice trots out of Willy and concentrating on my lower leg position.  I did a few canters that were nice and smooth but then did one where Willy started to take off at a gallop.  I slowed him down and pulled him to the side then had him flex his neck on each side towards my foot.  I didn't let up until Willy "gave" to me.  Then I worked him at a walk and trot.  Then I cantered him again, he listened much better and didn't try to take off

Later I tried to just do some simple trot circles, unless I'm in the indoor arena or the smaller arena it's very hard to find flat even ground.  I was having a time of Willy not listening to me, trying to stop trotting as we went around the circle.  Eventually I got him to go around the circle a couple times without a fuss so I stopped at that.

Good enough.  He's not Divine and certainly has a lot of holes in his training, if he was my horse he would have been at the trainers long ago as I've said before.  But for having a good time riding a horse on Sundays he fits the bill quite well. 

After the ride Steve helped me groom him.  He started one side with the curry brush and I finished with the stiff brush.  Then Steve picked his hooves.  I'm so proud of the hubby taking the time to learn about this horse stuff.  It will most likely be a while before we get him his horse, well cross my fingers maybe sooner so he can come ride with me but at least he's learning to be around horses.  He'll be around mine a lot and he needs to feel comfortable with that.

We put Willy back in his run and gave him and Two Socks some carrots.  Misty was already taken out to get ridden by her leasor.  Then we went and said hello to the little mini's.  Gee Gee is the bigger and darker one and Lacey is the smaller one that has more brown on her.  Steve thinks they are so cute!  We gave them some carrots and then called it a day.  A nice warm house awaited us!