Cindy stopped by the house after work, changed clothes and then she and Gary headed to the stables around 6:30.
Gary brought LBR up from the paddock as Cindy staged all the tack and grooming supplies.
They groomed and tacked LBR up and Cindy headed to the sand arena for their ride. LBR has gotten spoiled to expecting a treat at the mounting block (Cindy NEVER gives him one, but the trainer & Gary do somtimes). He turns his head and tries to sniff treats out and as Cindy walks up the stairs, he backs up. Cindy worked with him patiently to stand still and found that if she stood first with him for about 1 minute, he wouldn't back up.
There was a lot of commotion at the stables tonight. The stable-hand was mowing paddocks with the tractor and another person was mowing around the outside of the sand arena with a hand mower.
LBR was a little anxious over it all, but Cindy decided to ride him through it rather than head to the grass arena.
LBR yielded nicely at the walk and trot and loosened up after about 20 minutes. Cindy then cantered him clockwise. He got the lead perfectly, but when just as they got to the end where the mowing was going on, the person pushing the mower lifted it up to make a turn and LBR "spooked". Spooked is in quotes because this was at the canter and it was really a lateral move of about 10 feet in one stride. Cindy stayed on and cantered him on around until he calmed nicely in a large circle at the opposite end of the arena.
She then trotted him a bit before asking for the canter counterclockwise. Once again he got the correct lead. She repeated the cantering in both directions three more times and couldn't have been prouder of how LBR handled it all.
During Cindy's ride, Gary rode a friends horse and had fun.
After the ride, Cindy led LBR back to the grooming stalls, de-tacked and cleaned his hooves before Gary rinsed him off.
They all took a leasurely stroll back to the paddock and Gary & Cindy headed home around 9:00 p.m.
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