Tack? What is tack..?

This seems to be the question any one would guess I would ask, if they had seen me and Riley's last few rides. I pulled him up much later than I intended to last night. I had a pretty busy day and lost track of time. Still, I wanted to at least give him a little exercise so I pulled him up and took him in the arena tackless. No, I do not ALWAYS ride him like that. As a matter of fact I usually only ride him tackless every once and a while but the last few times I have gone to ride him it has been late and we had the arena to ourselves so why not? (It also didnt help that I was sooo lazy that I didnt feel like going to get my saddle) Either way Riley certainly didnt seem to mind and did very well. Got a little distracted at one point when the new Walking horse in the pasture by the arena came over and started nickering at him and pacing the fenceline. And  by distracted I mean he turned an ear to him and gave him the "evil eye". Other than that we went along our merry way trotting laps around the arena and throwing in some circles and a few serpentines for good measure. What a saint of a horse I have been blessed with.
We also did some slow canter laps and circles as well as worked on accelerating to a controlled gallop and than decelerating back to the slow canter with my seat. He picks up his leads great but we still have to work on his flying lead changes. Under saddle he does them pretty well but tackless he tends to change in the front but not the back. I think it is just my timing with the cues but either way we will eventually get it. After the ride I walked him out and after he cooled I fed him and turned him out quickly. Someone had told me a storm was coming but it seemed to be rolling in a lot faster than originally thought. Lightning lit up the sky rather frequently which always makes me a littler nervous. Maybe I am paranoid but I have the only horse with shoes on the place and with that I always wonder if it makes him more likely to be struck by lightning than the others? Perhaps it is only a silly thing to presume but I worry none the less. I put him out in the pasture and kissed his nose and gave him the biggest carrot either of us had ever seen, and than headed home for the night.

The pictures below are "before and after" shots of Moose. The first one is a pic of him the day I went to look at him. The other is a picture from this morning after I fed him. Look at the difference! :)