Easter Weekend

This past weekend I spent Friday and Saturday with Buckshot, since I had family plans for Sunday.

On Saturday we had the most wonderful ride. Sometimes riding him is almost ethereal, it feels so perfect and harmonious. Saturday was one of those days. (The day before, we had found an injury on one of his front legs (a wound/ scratch where he had punctured the skin on the inside top of his right front leg, inside of the elbow), and we were giving him an antibiotic and watching it-when we touched it, he didn’t show any pain about it. And he had his vaccines, which included tetanus, just a few months ago.)

So I rode him, and he was in rare, energetic, I might even say, happy form. After our walking warm up, I asked him for a trot and he gave such a lovely, powerful trot- it felt wonderful! I felt in balance on him, and he felt perfectly balanced and eager under me – one of those rare combinations where riding is such a joy! Even the PO noticed his good energy, which while powerful, was not out of control. He was very responsive to my aids, and responded with vigor! We had two rider/students who had trailered their horses in, and hadn’t ridden much all winter, so I expected the unexpected. We did some walking, and patterns, without incident. While the new horses stood in the center, Caren and I cantered our horses. Buckshot was a dream! Strong, powerful cantering, which I sat well, and stayed balanced in the turns and hummed to him when I wanted him to come down to the trot. Wonderful! After an hour and a half of riding, I dismounted, praised him and took him to untack, and give him a rinse of his sweaty spots.

The previous day, Friday, was filled with light rain most of the day, so I didn’t ride him. Instead, we did some groundwork exercises in his pasture. And I carefully washed and cleaned his leg wound, and a scratch he had on his forehead. We gave him an antibiotic by mouth, which means I also wore a lot of it! We also checked his weight using the weight string, and he hadn’t lost any weight, rather had gained a tiny bit. Good. Overall a very nice time with my sweet, precious horse. Despite his quirks, I couldn’t ask for a better horse! Good Buckshot!