Road ride

Garbo has been a bit jumpy lately when I bring him in - looking over towards the orchard like there are boogie men in there. I think it may be a reaction to either the grass after the rain, or from the hay cubes. I actually stopped the hay cubes and he came right - then gave him one the day before yesterday, and voila yesterday he was spooky again. They smell funny - and Coco is a bit more on alert and less relaxed - however Maraschino has not had any reaction what so ever.

So for now I'll keep on with eliminating the hay cubes and see how we go.

The human in my gets so annoyed at him when he's all spooky at nothing - because it really is nothing - however I do know that fungal/endophyte reactions can cause horses to hallucinate and it effects their vision alot too - so I need to work on my emotional fitness on that one.

I took him for a walk in hand past the spooky area (even though Linda's last blog post said not to do that) - athough I waited as long as he needed at each threshold - funnily enough the first one was about 20 feet from the washbay and yards. Once we got to the long grass however I noticed the thresholds decreased, and he was happily eating grass by the time we got back to the same area after a walk up the road. I decided a distraction and some transitions and turns online would help us both so that's what we did. On the way back he spooked at the fence (that he has walked past a thousand times) but after that he was happy just eating (next to the orchard).

I took him back into the wash bay and he was 100% relaxed so I saddled him up and jumped on and off we went up the road again. George came too for the company but Garbo led the way - and I think he would have gone further than Stanley's place (the dogs all started barking at us), but we decided the road was a bit too iffy down there (too many more crazy drivers past that point).

I rode him back (and yes Maraschino was very good both times), and he happily then went into his yard for dinner. Once he's in the yards at night he's fine (when he's jumpy) so I don't know what he thinks is waiting in the bushes, that suddenly disappears when food appears!

I might ride up the road again today - I was going to go to Jool's but I have a headache (think I pulled some back muscles yesterday weeding the last of the dock) so it's a quiet day for us here today - lovely sunny weather and gorgeous cool air. Well it's still 21 degrees.