Groomed and rode Newt. I trimmed his bridal path and Newt had no concern about the clippers at all. I led Newt to the arena. Madelyn was working in the garden and had a black rubber mat laid out near our path. It was no problem for Newt. The cows were at the gate as we went through. It seems the concern for cows and horses is all over now. They pay no attention to each other. Newt wanted to canter on the lunge. He was able to canter and keep his balance on the lunge circle in both directions. The lunge circle is almost as big as the inside of the circle I ride. I need to measure my circle as I have just guessed 20 meters. We rode one round at a walk, then trot for one round and change directions by riding, still at the trot, through the center then trot the same circle, inner, middle or outer, in the other direction then walk one round. Then repeat for each size circle. We cantered for about 4 strides and then back down to a trot. This was a first for us and I found Newt has a nice canter. It excited him, was different, more speed, and I thought the 5 stride might be a buck. When we finished the circle, I let Newt walk on a loose rein. It occurred to me that it would be very interesting to ride the circle on a loose rein. I achieved some success but would often need to resort to slightly taking up the rein slack in one rein in order to communicate exactly where I wanted to be. We rode the rectangle maybe 2 or 3 rounds in both directions, mostly at a trot.
We rode about 400 feet down the trail around the Oak Pasture. Newt has an unusual behavior when he is not comfortable doing something. Most horses start showing some nervousness at the first uncomfortable feeling but Newt just keeps on going until he just cannot stand it and then has a violent reaction. Hopefully I can instill confidence and we can get past something like that. We are much further along than when we did it two years ago. I had set a goal to reach on the trail and I think Newt was thinking hard when we turned around. I don’t want him to think too much in these situations so I navigate by this clump of grass and between two other clumps, anything to keep him busy. We had no problems and got back to the gate and went to the barn. It was 80 today and Newt had a little sweat on the sides of his neck when we finished.