[ferricyanide]

I lunge my gelding before every ride at home for a few reasons. 1. I can see his mood for the day, he's always fresher on the lunge line than under saddle. 2. Get any jitters initial nervous energy out. I ride alone a lot and i think it's safer. 3. It helps me get rid of any pony puffing before i get on. 4. See how well hes moving and check for any tenderness. 5. I actually found i didn't get the saddle quite right a few weeks ago. He was going better one way than the other. 6. He actually could use any exercise he can get, so making him more fit isn't a problem.

Now i generally don't lunge him before a trail unless he seems extremely unfocused. There are other people there and he's gonna have a long way to go.


My filly i currently only lunge 1. Any exercise she can get is good and i currently only walk on her when i ride. 2. If she's focused on something outside the round pen.

 

[ferricyanide]

Now a couple weeks ago i opted to ride my filly instead of my gelding because he came up super fresh when i went to get them for dinner. It was extremely windy. He came up blowing hard and looking around a little frantically. I asked him if the wind was scary and he started bucking. (Actually caught it on camera).

I opted to not ride him that day. The 2 year old was the better option. He was in a better mood in a day or 2. Now if he did that all the time, i would suck it up and get it on cautiously. But he is generally not that much of a mess regularly, so a day here or there if i don't ride isn't a huge deal. 🤷‍♀️