Loki's problem was that he was trying to avoid Sif and also trying to prolong the time he could spend in her company, all at once. It got... complicated, that way.
"Surely it makes sense to check, just in case," Loki defended in a not-particularly-defensive,-mostly-just-reasonable fashion. "My step-mother keeps horses – I don't remember if I said? More than just the one fellow with the awful canter, that is. And when she was younger, there was a horse who was just getting checked in an indoor ring, a bit like this, who did end up with a hoof fouled – a cigarette, I think it was, not a stone, but it still caused him quite a bit of trouble, as I recall."
He stepped away from Katie's last hoof, stretched himself out again, took note of the fact that yes, in fact, he was going to be quite saddle-sore in the morning, despite the brevity of the ride, and gave Sif a fairly open smile, as his smiles went. "I'm really not the sort of rider who can bear to assume there are stablehands who are going to take care of things for me. If I ask, perhaps – but I'm not going to leave a horse uncared-for while the stablehands try to figure out what I expect them to do. So. If there's anything else I can help with...?"