Spooking and spinning

Wolfie's been busy this week, we've hacked, lunged and had one schooling session and introduced some pole work.  He's been very good, although now he's generally working more in trot and canter than he has done before, he seems to now think that we should just go everywhere at a very, very fast trot or canter.  I have to be very careful to vary the places where I trot and canter, so he doesn't anticipate it all the time.  He's becoming much stronger and the hacking and hill work is slowly helping to build him up and strengthen his hindquarters.  Today we went again for our early Sunday morning hack.  As we were walking along the road, he has to pass a house with very high hedges which he can't see over.  There were children playing in the garden on a swing set, a lot of noise, people and a dog.  He could see movement through the hedge, but had no idea what was going on in there.  He stopped, neck again rock solid and started backing up straight away.  He walked forward two steps and reared and span so we were facing the opposite direction.  If there had been another horse with us that could have blocked us in or led us past the house it would have made a difference, but it was far too dangerous on the road to wait it out or try and force him to go on.  I got off and led him the last 20 yards down the road onto the track.  It's the same scenario, if he could see what was there, I think he would accept it.  I'm not really concerned about his spooking, it's mainly because he's not getting out enough to experience and face different things.  When I hack during the week, I stay on the hills as the road is too busy as the time I ride most people are going home from work.  The rest of the hack he was outstanding.  He crossed the bridge quite boldly and he gave me the best trot I think we've ever had.  It was one of those moments when everything just seems to click and fall into place.  He was working through from behind and beautifully soft on the contact and through his neck.  He was totally on my aids and felt completely relaxed.  Now we have to aim to transfer that level of work to the school and build up consistency in the work he's being asked to do.

Wolfie got his new shoes on Thursday.  He's gone up a shoe size and now has Equilibrium shoes.  They are still quarter clip shoes, but are supposed to be designed to allow correct fitting of the shoe on the hoof and have a safed off toe to allow correct breakover and equilibrium.  They are popular with farriers who want to shoe the horse in a natural balance way and are supposed to offer a midway alternative between drop forged natural balance shoes and traditional concave shoes.  I meant to take a before and after photograph of the old and new shoes, but I forgot.

Wolfie doesn't like any form of grooming or brushes.  I think he is very ticklish and he gets nothing out of being brushed.  He likes to be scratched, so I use a hand garden rake which he loves.  It looks like an instrument of torture, but he likes it.  I normally scratch him and then give him a curry to try and shift the grease and dirt.  The photographs below are of Wolfie today being scratched.