Highboy, Raven, and Note

I've had a chance to ride my own horses a bit the past week, and we've all enjoyed it.  Jasi has a new camera and tested it out on my jumping horses one morning.

Raven loves her job - you can see her ears are up as she looks forward to her next fence.

Highboy is doing really well.  He's just about totally recovered from the rattlesnake bite he had 3 weeks ago.  His recovery has been fast and thorough, likely because he was vaccinated for rattlesnake bites.  I've known other horses who were bit who took months to recover this much.  Some didn't survive the bite, and others still had effects years afterwards.  I'm so grateful Highboy is doing so well.

Note recently went on a field trip to a friend's place so that I could have his saddle re-fitted.  He has changed dramatically this spring by gaining weight and topline muscle and needed the flocking and headplate readjusted in his jumping saddle.  He behaved pretty well initially, and even was ok for my friend to hold him while I rode her horse for that saddle fitting.  I brought Note to her place for the fitting partially so that I could give him the experience off my property.  He needs many field trips to become reasonable in new places.

 Once I bridled Note and we started his fitting, though, Note became excited, which made for an interesting ride.  He didn't want the fitter getting close to him and was a jerk about it, striking and kicking at her while aiming.  The trick with this saddle was that I needed to be riding him to get the air panels inflated correctly, which left the fitter on her own on the ground while I was mounted.  I did eventually work him and get him settled enough to do some jumping in the now properly adjusted saddle. While this all was going on my friend and her mom were sitting on a bench by the arena watching, and I'm pretty sure they were whispering to each other that they should have sold tickets!