Gymkhana Pony? :)

So, to be honest, I haven't been doing much of anything lately with Cruizer except for feeding him cookies, grooming him, and letting him play in the arena, oh..and doing showmanship. His pull turns are about half confirmed most of the time. Getting better!

Really, I don't care if we get any serious ride time all winter long, because I think it is good for his brain (and mine) to just take a break and have fun for awhile. Plus, I HATE the cold, I'm always working, and can't ride him alone in the arena..due to his incredible spookyness in the indoor and lack of rational thinking. He always comes back from long breaks like I rode him the day before, and he comes back with a fresh attitude and better work ethic. So I am perfectly content with only riding once a week or about during the winter months.

Cruizer saw his new farrier the other day. I knew he wasn't ready for a trim (EVEN THOUGH WE'RE THREE MONTHS OUT. that's how short his feet were trimmed last time..and they're STILL short. ugh). But we wanted to see what the new farrier thought about how his feet were looking. He said I basically have two options- put shoes on now and have pretty feet, or not trim for AWHILE still and have ugly feet.. but they're still way too short to trim. His wall needs to come down more and then we can rasp away the ugly parts, but until then, the farrier doesn't want to touch his feet. Which is what I was expecting. Since Cruizer is perfectly sound and comfortable, I see no reason to put shoes on. He's just gonna have ugly-ish feet until he grows some more hoof. Which is fine. His feet are looking TONS better, and the hoof that is coming down looks great.

About the title. I had a 4H meeting last night, and it was announced that in addition to the open pleasure shows this year...we're going to have a speed show! I WANT TO GO SO BAD. So I'm thinking about hauling Cruizer to the show to do some classes and have fun. Neither of us has ever run barrels or poles, but I've always wanted to try it, and what better time to do it? I'm definitely not going to ask him to go all out like a speed horse, just pick up some speed and have fun. I think Cruizer would enjoy it. The times where we have cantered around fast in jumping position with our heads in the air he has LOVED it. Obviously we will need to practice before the show.. because otherwise Cruizer is going to lope the whole thing with his head level. He's going to be so confused about going to a show where he didn't endure the tortures of banding, bathing, and clipping the day before, oh and no fake tail either for this one. :)

Cruizer is VERY athletic, so who knows, he might actually be good at barrels, lol. A lot of people don't know it, but Cruizer can seriously haul ass and turn on a dime. I'm excited.