Barefoot!

I am pleased to announce that Cruizer had his shoes pulled this past Tuesday, and has perfectly sound and comfortable ever since. This is shocking to me, (although SUPER relieving), because every other time we have tried to pull his shoes, he immediately goes dead lame, and hobbles around, and only gets worse with time. I really would like for him to go barefoot now for the rest of his life (if possible), but I'll do whatever makes him comfortable. The day he got his shoes off I just trotted him in hand a little bit to see, and he looked great, so I just groomed him and let him eat grass. I didn't want to push my luck. I was pleased to see that when I got there he was turned out, as I had asked my coach to keep him in if he was lame (which she knows obviously, but just so she knew what I wanted done with him). I rode him the following day, and just went easy on him. He felt great. He was a little unsure of how to use his new feet at the canter, but he was sound. I only rode for about a half hour that day. The following day (yesterday) we had a real ride. I was alone & it was cold out so I free lunged him before hand just to be safe, and ohmygod I have not seen him run and buck so much in a longgg time. He galloped laps around the outdoor for 15 minutes, with tons of lead changes and bucking thrown in, then finally relaxed and just grazed. Our ride was awesome. I've been riding him in a different bit. It's just a plain snaffle with a barrel roller in the middle, but with weird shanks, sort of similar to an elevator bit. It also has a noseband that tightens a little with bit pressure, so it operates like a bosal and I thought he would like it because of that. He seems to really like it so far. Anyway, we did lots of trotting, transitions, and cantering. We did some simple lead changes too, and worked on cantering out of a stop, and NOT lifting his head to go into the canter. He has always thought that he needs to lift his head and neck in order to go into a canter. He did really well with that so then we were done.

Cruizer being sweet yesterday.