During Steen’s convalescence, I’ve been riding Bear a bit more. And this is good because I do think Bear and I are getting to know each other better. He’s more and more Brian’s horse as time goes on, but it’s nice to feel our last few rides that he’s capable of leaving Brian for a while and getting with me.
Bear’s in good shape right now, and he’s very very soft to the hackamore, but his back does still get tight at times. Our first ride he was good until we tried loping, and then got pretty agitated, so I think he was sort of sore. We had a lot of good walking and trotting on the stirp, though, and although he got a bit antsy after loping to the right we recovered and went on to do more relaxed work at the trot.
Our second ride was in the indoor arena. I hadn’t ridden Bear indoors in ages, but he was good for me. We had some good work at the walk and trot, followed by some very easy, balanced circles at the lope. He’s also backing like a champ lately, really digging in with his hind and pulling. And I still just can’t get over how soft he is. We worked on holding a bit of collection at both the walk and trot, and he’s getting great with that.