Happy Birthday Boomer!!!

March 1st was Boomer's 7th birthday! I gave him an extra carrot and told him I expect him to start acting like a big boy now.

The temperature is finally picking up which means the snow is melting and the mud is awful. The barn keeps the catch pen at the top of the pasture plowed, but the alley from pasture to dry lot is really bad. So, Boomer came in with mud caked up to his fetlocks and we got to have a fun bath day. I only hosed his feet, but he was NOT a happy camper. Obviously, he has been hosed off before, but he has only been in the wash racks a handful of times. I have been making a point to adjust the hose (it is on a tall swinging arm) and make sure Boomer is aware that there are scary hoses hanging from the ceiling. He hasn't been concerned by any of it. In fact, he was fine with me hosing his back hooves, but then I started on his fronts, he freaked out and started scrambling and jumping around. I finally had to have another boarder stand at his head and talk to him while I finished hosing him off. After that, I just let him stand in the wash rack for about 10 minutes to calm down and think about the fact that the scary water didn't kill him after all.

After all of that excitement, I tacked up, lunged with the elastic rein, and rode. Boomer is doing very well and I was very happy with his progress. He is getting better about the scary door monster at the A end of the arena (I think Andrea has one of those too!). We did more canter transitions and got 5 left and 3 right. He still gets really high and light afterwards, so it takes a lot of trot work and circles to get him back down and ready for the next transition. Trying to fit in 10 in each direction would take two hours at this point. Perhaps we will get to the point where we can do 20 in an hour someday! It wasn't a particularly exciting ride, but it was successful. Can't ask for much more than that!