Learning Distance ride with Tanza yesterday

I found he has a big issue with separation anxiety, and on trail this comes up if I even ask him to slow down and not keep with a group he's been with.   I need to find a way to get him to key onto me for when I need to slow him down.   All horses have a bit of "NO, I must stay with the herd",  but my previous horses would get over that within 10 minutes and just go into a conserve my energy mode until a horse behind them caught up.   Tanza stays keyed up and wastes energy fighting to go faster.  Really caught me by surprise because in Basin on Labor day weekend he was a bit tired and was like 'nah I don't have to keep up'.   But last two rides I thought he was having some minor lameness so I was pulling him back when he was not tired.

I also decided he does a skipping thing that feels like lameness when he is wanting to go faster and I'm holding him back a bit.  I'm not positive that was the only gait issue either ride but now I know he does this and he was fine on trot outs at vet checks both rides. 

And I have been just ignoring him stomping non-existent flies whe he is crabby and yesterday he escalated to actually doing threat kicks (not connecting but definitely waving in people's direction).  Of course I got after him for that, but now I know I should have been telling him to knock it off with the stomping.   I've had so many horses that were just sweethearts that I didn't realize I was creating a monster by not correcting the milder naughtiness.

But they called our name as completing (we were down to wire on pulsing down to stop the clock which is the finish time for LDs, and then he failed his CRI at when I tried to vet him just several minutes later and I was not sure I was within the hour limit when I got him back for recheck.)  He was fine on the recheck.   He was doing a pogo act the last bit into the vet check with first place 50 passing us and a train going by a 100 yards or so away and had been wasting energy most of the loop so in retrospect not surprising he was all stressed; but at the time I was very worried he had a lameness issue even though the vet hadn't said she saw anything.

A VERY excellent horse woman had her good horse colic.  So scary.  I know there is the shit happens at rides, but seeing it in person with someone that I know is top notch about taking care of their horses was a reminder that it is a demanding sport.  I had to remind myself that shit happens to the horses that are only in easy work or even just pasture paradise too; so not having any aspirations would not be any guarantee of avoiding a sick horse.