A bronze star trail ride

After last weekend's spectacular success, I shouldn't have had my hopes up for a repeat performance. And Willig was set up for failure because I found out this week (on Wednesday) that my beloved dog (my other blog) has a second heart problem on top of the first one, and I don't think he's going to make it much longer. So in the big scheme of things, I figured Willig and Mercury could just enjoy life this summer and I'll spend extra time with my dog.
Well, short version is Willig doesn't like "enjoying life." He'd rather I come out and work him every day.
He was pretty wound up today. I rode him Tuesday and then I lunged him Saturday, but for him, that is an extremely light week. So this morning, even though it was hot, he ran and ran and ran on the lunge line, and worked himself into a full lather. He just stayed jumpy after that.
To compound the problem, Sam rode Mercury, and I finally got to see the problems she's been talking about. They were suspecting it was a group problem, and since he's been on the trails tons alone and lots with one other horse, I wasn't sure one more horse makes a difference. It seems to. He was terrible. I told Sam not to ride him on trails anymore with two other people, but I'm not sure how I'm going to fix the problem since a) it's almost impossible for me to get two people to go out with me, and b) I only have two horses, so that means I have to get two people with their own horses to boot!
But at least we know now it isn't Sam, and isn't random with Merc. I don't know why he would be a weirdo with three but not two.
The high points, however, were that Willig and Erin were good in the water, and we did the medium hill (the steepest is still too steep) and we got to see Rainier.

As to the two comments posted to my last blog - I agree completely that I think I needed some time to get my "feel" back. Instead of making a list of questions for Bob, I have to figure it out myself, and while that's slower and I make mistakes in the things I try, I can "read" Willig much better now than I could when I first got him. It's like I'm regaining my horse sense, which I kind of wondered where it had gone too. I still plan to get a new trainer as soon as I can afford it (and hopefully diesel prices will stop going up!), but I think this summer has been well spent working with Willig and me on relationships, trust, and figuring each other out. He seems to be getting better and better (or at least, more predictable). I'm fond of him.
And I will try the keratex next winter! Thanks for the tip!