Near miss...

Took Rosso up to Rex's today for my lesson. He's a good boy... had him tied to the trailer grooming him chatting it up with Meg (from yesterday's schooling show).

Toe was in the tack room of the trailer on his personal Toe saddle pad... he's gotten so good at staying in there until I give him the release command of "ok". I didn't notice he'd jumped out and was quietly sunning himself on the ground in front of the door of the tack room.

UNTIL Rosso started sort of dancing around about something... I looked over and saw Toe laying on the ground with Rosso's hooves just inches from him. I shouted his name sharply in panic, "TOE!" while Rosso was snorting and dancing around.

Toe jumped up, tucked tail and dove under the horse trailer. I guess the sound of my voice conveyed sumthin' really wasn't right. As he dove under the trailer, Rosso stepped on him - and I heard Toe squeal.

Which in turn caused Rosso's dancing around to escalate....

Once things calmed down, Toe emerged from under the trailer and jumped up into the safety of his tack room seemingly no worse for the wear. Rosso's hoof musta just pinched him. Sure gave me a heart attack tho! That coulda been the end of baby dog.

I should have been paying better attention... I was chatting with Meg and Toe's been so great about staying IN the tack room....

Bet it was a really good enforcement for him to STAY in the safety of the tack room from here on out! (which he was very happy to do the rest of the time spent at Rex's...)

I had a good ride. Rosso's front feet were a bit sore... he's barefoot and we think just the wet and dry and wet and dry have caused his soles to be a bit soft. He was very pleasant and we kept it short since he was taking off steps intermittently and because he was being so good about it all. I was very pleased with my boy... oh, we measured him to see how tall he is. Someone asked and I don't know. He sure seems big to me, people remark that he's tall. Well, for the record he's exactly 16.1 and 1/2.

Karen from the ride before mine remarked how pretty Rosso is under saddle... he looks sort of young, gangly and all legs when he's nekkid but when you put a saddle and rider on him, he does look very pretty with a very expressive face. Sera is a pretty cool number who only seems to make faces when she's pissed. Rosso is sort of goofy and makes all sorts of really interesting faces and funny expressions.

I'm still hinky about riding him at home, but think I'll trailer him up to Rex's during the week to ride til I'm feeling more confident. Maybe find a local schooling show to take him to... ask Wendy down the road if I can bring him by to work in her barn/arena and I know Lauralie will let me bring him to her place near Johnson's Corner. We'll get him out and about.... the little debutant.