Catching Up

 I fell off the blogging wagon again, because, well, nothing's been happening.

In what seemed to be just a couple of days, Stitch had another growth spurt in mid-October. On the Wednesday my mom and I both looked at him before I tacked up and said that he was looking pretty level, by Saturday his butt was noticeably higher.

Definitely bum high.

I rode on the next Tuesday. His first trot felt a bit discombobulated and he stumbled a couple of times, which he hasn't done since the first couple of rides. (This could have also been because the other horses left the ring and he had some feelings about that.)

I was kind of thinking that maybe it would be best to start his winter break early, and when I wentout on Friday to ride I looked at his back and the way it was swooping up to his much higher butt and said, nah, he's done for the season. 

In case you missed it in the first pic.

However, I allowed myself to have one more ride around the field the next day if someone was around to go with me. It was supposed to be a beautiful day, quite possibley the last of the season. 

Sure enough, I woke up in the morning with a text from someone asking if I wanted to head out after my lessons were done for the day. Of course I said yes.

So off we went, on what turned out to be a somewhat overcast and gloomy afternoon. Very much not what was forecasted.

Stitch had only been ridden once that week, so he definitely had a bit of sass in his step. Not fancy prancing horse sass, but I knew there was something in there.

I also figured out why he always has a dorky center part in his forelock - he has a giant cowlick at the base. His forelock is never going to lay flat without assistance.

What was different on this ride from our previous jaunts around the field was that the other rider's dog was accompanying us. He was full of energy and was running everywhere, including into the ditches, which then meant popping back into the field from behind the tall grass along the edge. 

I'm sure you can guess where this is going. 

Stitch was fine along the first side of the field, although he was keeping a close eye on the spaniel.

As we turned the corner I moved him a little closer to the edge of the field and onto the packed road. We weren't there for long before the dog popped out of the grass, and Stitch showed me just what his big spooks were going to look like.

He spun to the left. Very quickly. Pretty sure his front end dropped pretty good too, but it was so fast I really don't know. 

The good news is that we had our first canter, and it was on the left lead that will be his tougher one to get!

The spin threw me out of position - I lost my left stirrup, the saddle slid quite a bit to the right, my reins were long so my hands were way up in the air (but not that long because I was kind of anticipating something was going to happen). As I was starting to look for a soft landing place, I realized my dressage whip was flapping around way up in the air which probably wasn't helping things. 

I thought to myself if he's going to buck, this is where it's going to happen. 

But he didn't.

And I got myself somewhat organized and just rode the canter out. Stitch came back to walk, gave that dog a dirty look, and we continued. 

I mean, I wasn't crazy enough to really tempt fate and go back to the edge of the field. We stayed more so in the middle and ended the ride much earlier than planned. The other rider is of the nervous sort so she was also a little traumatized by my spook and was quite happy to change the plan up.

I still call the ride a success. Something happened, we survived, and we continued on. It didn't go the way I wanted it to, being the last ride that we were going to have for a while, but, hey, it made a good story.