Second day of turn out and lunging

Today the plan was to continue where I left off yesterday -- arrive at the barn, turn him out, clean some tack while watching him, and then lunge him after an hour or less of turnout.

The BO had switched the turn out schedule around and Holden's new paddock has a fair amount of grass in it -- hence why I am taking his introduction to paddocks slowly. Taking him out of the barn he was fairly good, though his head was really up high and he was kind of unsurely checking everything out. 

I walked him around the perimeter of the paddock once and unclipped him. He walked off and started to investigate the confines of the paddock: manure, some hay -- and the fence line. The two TBs on the other side of the fence came up to meet him and there was some squealing involved. The older TB has a habit of being overly dramatic (so the BO told me at least) and Holden didn't really seem interested in being struck by him. So he walked off. 

He realized (much like yesterday) that he was free to do whatever he wanted, so he started to trot and canter and snort and buck. He looked good doing it at least, but the hill on this paddock is fairly steep and he had a few oopsie moments. I was worried he wouldn't settle down but after about a minute of these antics he grew bored and started to graze. He then went back to the gate and ate the hay that was placed there, so I kept him out for longer than I would have because he was eating hay rather than grass.

Mike came around the time I was finishing cleaning tack so I brought Holden in and started to groom him and tack him up in the isle. We had a small incident where he decided he wasn't standing anymore (Mike had been holding him) and he whirled around in the isle, managing to get himself on top of the tack trunk that's by his stall and not even that close to where we had been grooming him. I was afraid he would panic but he disentangled himself pretty calmly. There's a small scrape where I assume his hind leg met the trunk, but no blood -- I put some salve on it and figured I'd watch him carefully in case it ended up bothering him (it didn't).

His swelling in his left hind hasn't rescinded, so maybe it is an older injury. The more I look at it the more I think maybe a horse clipped him in his last race - it's about the right height and he's fairly sensitive about it being touched. The Blu-Kote or whatever it is is still there. There is no scab there and still no heat, but working and turn out don't seem to make it go down. 

Holden wondering if he is doing this right.

He has decided today that Cheerios are not so bad - I took him in the stall after tacking him up to tackle his reluctance to be bitted. I gave him some Cheerios and put the Menthol extract on his bit again -- this time I would hold the bridle at about eye level and move it towards him while feeding him Cheerios. I then moved my hand near the bit, so that he had to bring his nose close to the bit to get the Cheerios - which he did without issue. So then I brought the bridle up and slid it into his mouth -- and he tolerated it as if he had always been a saint about it. Didn't even lift his head away -- so maybe it was just his old bit that he didn't like. I noticed today he was much better about letting me brush near his ears -- but he is still unsure of me and what I'm doing around him.

We then moved into the indoor and I hand walked him both directions for about ten minutes, frequently stopping and using verbal commands. He was much quicker to follow through with the commands than yesterday - before I could even finish saying "Annnnnnd whoaaa.." he was already stopped. I intermittently awarded his excellent behavior with some more Cheerios. We also worked on the "walk on" command.

After hand walking him for a while I pulled him into the middle of the ring and asked him to walk around me as if "lunging". This, like yesterday, seemed like a perplexing task to him -- but he was much better about it today and seemed to understand it better - there were only two incidents where he stopped and turned his haunches to face me -- and he seemed to understand the point of the exercise was to rotate around me rather than stop just because I was stopped. 

We went to the left first, and he was great -- walked right off like he was a schooled lunge horse and we walked on a fairly drunken circle, doing some walk/halt transitions supplied by verbal cue. Sporadic Cheerios offered, the quicker he would halt the more likely I would be to give him Cheerios. He was fairly good, and it only took him a few steps to stop each time.

Holden to the left, "lunging" in a small circle.

Going to the right was a little harder for him - like yesterday, he seemed to be confused on why I was on his "wrong side". I hand-walked him around the ring after he stopped and moved sideways, and I think this helped him -- once I assumed the "ground-driving" position he seemed to understand he was supposed to walk around me despite myself standing still. In the picture you can see his inside ear -- it is always focused towards me; right after this picture a boarder I had not met yet came in to say hello and introduce himself. His horse was purchased from the Unadilla auction a few weeks back, and is a sweet little chestnut by the name of Dolly. Like Holden she seems to not like being bitted, and we talked briefly about strategies to resolve the "bitting issue" before he went back to grooming up Dolly. Mike by this time had pretty much died of boredom. 

Holden stood quietly while we chatted, which was a pleasant surprised. We then resumed walking to the right, and I continued to ask him to do walk/halt transitions. He walks off in perfect time to "walk on", and I don't even need to supply it with a lift of my arm as if asking him to move -- but "aaaand whoaaa" can take a little longer.  When he halted I would pet/praise him, each time working closer and closer to his ears and face. While he may not understand this is praise, I want to get him acclimated to being touched all over -- as he is still fairly headshy and will sometimes jerk his head in surprise if I pet him there. 

I brought him in after this, no trotting today. I've always felt the slower you go the faster you get there -- and Holden's 'session' today went without a hitch. I untacked him in his stall this time, checked his new scrape one more time and then topped off his hay and water. I left him in the stall for tonight -- tomorrow I will see if he can go out for two hours at a time. 

I also talked to BO about his feed - she has him on 2 qts two times a day at the moment, and I expressed to her I expect he will need more than that despite having plenty of quality hay. The feed is rather low end, Nutrena "Stock and Stable" -- and I told her I would be looking for another feed for him. I am wondering if she expects me to pay for the feed or if it will be taken out of my boarding fee -- the boarding contract denotes it is the barn's expense for feed, but the BO strikes me as the type who may think it is my responsibility to pay for a different grain. This current grain is 12:3 -- which I don't believe is high enough fat for him. Spooky did very well on Omolene 500, which I personally liked because of the high oat and beet pulp content -- but I don't think that Holden is at the point where he needs a "high performance" feed yet. My options are purveying feeds at Tractor Supply or a local "Feed and Seed" store. 

If nothing else, I am pretty happy with the amount of hay she seems to be feeding him. It is pretty good hay, though it does have the occasional stalk and milkweed in it. I guess we can't have everything we want!