NOT helping Daniel

 Sigh...

 

After I rode both lame mares, instead of coming inside and crying and just giving up and laying down to pout... I decided to take Dan for a bareback ride around the neighborhood. I didn't have time to take him anywhere, which would have been way more ideal. And while I was tempted to take him to Ashland and just throw the shockwave and needles in the car with me and make him sit in the trailer while I worked, I decided that was too much work and effort. 

 

So I grabbed his bridle and my helmet and cookies and went to grab him. I got on and we headed to the lake. I opted not to put the bareback pad on and just get on him without it because... meh, it was a neighborhood walk and I was lazy and depressed. That was a bad idea. He was hot and we got sweaty and he was a turd!

 

We started off and he was anxious and prancy and nervous. Dan?! You live here... why are you being such a twit. As we got close to the lake I had my phone out to take photos and realized I didn't really have good pockets for it. I saw a truck pulling a flat bed full of limbs coming down the street and realized Dan had seen it too and was being all weird. The guy was coming in fairly quick and just kept coming. Dan decided he was really scary and tried to spin and bolt and even threw in a tiny buck/rear or something. I managed to stay on, but barely. I didn't drop my phone and luckily it was over before I really had time to do anything but stay on. Of course Dan was still agitated but we carried on. We got to the tennis courts and he was being a twit. He kept sticking his tongue out and over the bit. Ugh... NOOOOO. Why Dan? WHY!??? I tried trotting but he kept putting his head down and twisting it trying to pull the reins free and be silly, so I gave up. 

 

We walked the whole circle with him being a hot nervous mess practically the whole way. Someone was moving downed tree branches and he kept trying to jig and shy. I had to yell at him a few times and contemplated actually getting off. Dammit Dan. We managed to get back to the lake and he finally started to settled a tiny bit. I took him to the culdesac and the field and was going to try a trot there. Just a little bit of one to see if he was sound and also to check if I could do any contact at all without his tongue coming out to help me determine what was happening. And there was a loud banging coming from the road in the corner of that field, so he got on edge again. Sigh.. I gave up and took him to the arena. Once we got in there he settled and was fine. I was able to take up soft contact and we trotted a tiny bit and he was fine. He didn't get his tongue out and didn't even try. A few chomps but nothing major and not excessive. And he let me put him "on the bit", even though it was still a very long and forward neck with a super light contact. But still. 

 

Argh... Not exactly the ride I needed bud. Sigh... 

But, the good part of the day was first thing this morning. I was getting feed ready and noticed some geese in the pasture. Not just flying over... they were in the grass feeding. Funny noticed them too and started out to investigate. Lyric quickly followed and were calmly walking up to them. Dan went to join the fun and by then the girls had moved them a tiny bit and were still calmly following them. I had videod and had just turned the video off when Dan trotted into them and sent them into the air. That of course scattered everyone... not just the geese and everyone went cantering off. Daniel... of course. ;) I do think that I need to take him sorting. I'm not sure he'll enjoy sorting so much as he would cow bowling, but... might be fun. Heck.. maybe if he can't do anything else, we can go to the airports and go geese bowling as our new job. 

I'm gonna go cry now.