Grateful

I am so grateful that on a nice day like today, I still have a horse to ride even though mine is injured. Boomer's injury is doing well. It is healing quickly. His hematoma is doing much better. It is now just a hard knot over the jugular.

Pete is also doing well. I have been riding him in the western saddle and breaking that in as well! I rode him out in the big pasture and was really impressed with him. He was a little nervous going through the gate, going down the road into a ditch, and he spooked at some ducks. Other than that, he was great. His owners stopped by to talk for a while and said that John could ride him anytime as well once he was broke in. So, that may be something to do next weekend. His owners also told me that they had told the owner of a local feed store that I was breaking in Pete and she asked him to have me stop by because she was interested in hiring me to break/ride a few of her horses! Pretty cool! I guess it is validating when your training is getting spread by word of mouth. Here is what I wrote in Pete's log today:

2/7/09 1 hour

We rode out in the pasture today and Pete did very well. He was curious about everything and only spooked once at ducks taking off from the pond. He is doing really well with turns and trotting.
He is still really hesitant about crossing the ditch by the gravel road.
After the weather clears up this week I will start working on cantering.