Cob Jockey

First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you to all of the awesome commenters on my last post.  You all made me feel so much better, and I'll be doing a follow-up to that post very soon.

As you all know, I've been wrestling with Connor's weight going into spring.  For a while, I was very concerned about it, but several things have changed my mind:

1. Talking to a woman through CoTH who competes her Welsh Cob in training level eventing, and soon to be prelim level. about how her Cob gets fit/fat, and how they are essentially a little draft breed.
2. Talking to his breeder about essentially the same thing.
3. Realizing that he's not as high on the body condition score as I thought he was.
4. He's now spending almost zero time stalled and he's not eating hay, and we've still got a little wiggle room to adjust his feed, which he only gets once a day.

So, I'm holding off on the grazing muzzle, at least for now.  I think we've got this under control.  For proof, here's April's body condition photo:

Someday maybe I won't be the only person at the barn, and I'll get someone to take it for me so I can set him up properly.

I'm seeing a few changes in him these days: he's developing muscle on the upper side of his neck, and the overdeveloped muscle on the underside of his neck has shrunk considerably.  As he goes into that magical sixth year for Cobs, he's also getting bigger in places like his chest and rib cage.  He turns six in just a couple of weeks!

I took enough photos of him today to fill an entire photo album.  Here's a sampling:

This is what it looks like to ride Connor.

And this is what a Connor spook looks like.  Note the ear position.

Yeah, grass stains in his mane.  All over his mane, in fact.  Ugh.

Our sweet new microfiber saddle pad, a gift from my mom to her "Grand Pony," as she called him last weekend.  Also, I have a serious love affair with that saddle.

Check out my skin dapples!