Second trail ride

A few days ago, Foxfire and I went for a second trail ride around the neighborhood. The pasture was (and is) still too muddy for riding, and also, Ziggy seems more accepting of Shadowfax when they are away from the donkeys. Shadowfax did quite well again. Still very looky, but paying more attention to me. There was only one time when he had a little problem. Foxfire had ridden Ziggy fairly far ahead and turned a corner. Once Ziggy was out of sight, Shadowfax got somewhat nervous and started prancing. I tried to calm him back down to a walk, but he wouldn't calm very easily. I tried letting the reins out just a little to let him trot to catch up, but he gathered himself like he was going to go into a canter, so I pulled him back. (I do not want him cantering over asphalt.) I thought about just working through it, but we were coming up on a section of the road that slopes somewhat steeply down to a bridge and I didn't want him to be prancing down that slope. Shadowfax apparently doesn't have much experience with going up and down hills and I was afraid he might lose his balance or something, so I called Foxfire to bring Ziggy back. As soon as Ziggy was back in sight and relatively close, Shadowfax calmed right down and went back to walking.

We finished the ride back in our front yard, and I let Foxfire ride Shadowfax for the first time. He walked, trotted and very briefly cantered him up and down the long side of our property (we live on a corner). Shadow did do a little buck when Foxfire asked him to canter, but otherwise did pretty well. However, I think he really is the kind of horse that would prefer to have just one person riding him. He seems to behave better for me than for either Foxfire or JJ. (JJ said so herself when she went with me to evaluate him before buying him. And she is not the type to say things she doesn't mean.)

Anyway, that's all for now. Foxfire lost a very close friend today and I'm trying to help him deal with the pain. Right now, he's sitting next to me on his computer chatting with other friends, so I figured I would simply write a short post so that I had a reason to sit next to him. I hope that I can give him what he needs.