Fall Bliss Continues!

This afternoon Fly and I headed out on a tough new-to-him trail with Sharon and her wonderful horse, Mikey. We trailered out to the west mountains and headed up through a narrow rocky canyon, climbing up into the hills. Flyboy was 4xEasyboot Gloves, thank goodness, since there were rocks everywhere. Looking at the hills from a distance, they appear to be soft golden green, covered with long pale grass. Well, let me tell you, what you can't see from a distance is that the grass is hiding millions of bowling ball sized rocks that lie in wait to trip the next passing horse. We carefully maneuvered over the rocks and between silver bleached dead cedars.

We climbed quite high and Fly was suitably impressed with the view it seemed. And it was impressive on this sunny fall day! After a little convincing he took the lead and moved out in front! Happily, for the most part! I was proud of him for that! Today was his best lead-horse day so far. Mikey took over again once we headed back down, but Fly has shown he can do it!

Our descent was a cross-country, pick-your-way-carefully, steep meander across the saddle, down the hill and back to the trail. The trail then turned into the "LONG STEEP HILL FROM YOU-KNOW-WHERE." Covered with rocks and quite steep. And long. Needless to say, we took our sweet, slow time, giving the horses a chance to rest and regroup several times on the way down. Fly was not appreciative of that trail, and I don't blame him! But he was such a good boy and quite careful and obedient.

He did feel ouchy, though, which really should not be the case where he was booted on all fours. I am thinking about the thrush thing again. The other day, Fly was standing out in back of the barn with Keno, and I noticed he was leaning forward. (Meaning his chest and neck pushed forward, standing with his legs not vertically under him, but rather behind the vertical if that makes sense.) Basically he was carrying his weight on his toes and was reluctant to bear weight on his heels. This can be caused by several things, but in his case, where he has always been barefoot, doesn't have contracted or under-run heels, or too-high heels/bars, I think thrush is a reasonable thing to look at, even if he is in a clean sand/pea gravel environment. His frogs have been flaky and shedding, but are not black, mushy, or stinky, so I certainly don't think it's any kind of severe infection, but sore nonetheless. I will get aggressive and get it healed up. We need those toe first landings and confident strides!

Once again, Fly has shown his level-headedness, willingness, and heart as he took on the challenges of this tough trail. He has never seen terrain like he's seen the last four weeks, and he is totally handling everything that comes his way. He is a good boy.