Monday Recap

Despite Monday being a holiday, I had to work. Boo. But only for a half day. Yay! But it meant heading out to the barn in the evening.

When We arrived at the barn, the sky seemed rather ominous. There was a bunch of rain in the forecast for the day, so it seemed to be inevitable. So I dashed out to grab Cisco, and rushed through grooming so that we could get into the arena quickly. I don't know how he would react if a storm comes in while I am riding, and didn't feel the need to find out that night,

When we walked to the arena, the clouds seemed to have blown away. Yay! So I wasn't in such a rush to get my ride done. First thing to consider - do I need to lunge? Originally I had been thinking yes, as when I had caught him he had been chasing one of the mares who is apparently in heat and being a bit of a hussy. So I wasn't sure if the (non-existent) testosterone was still pulsing through him. But we started with the groundwork, and he settled in nicely so I decided to lunging wasn't needed.

When we were walking he was doing lots of the little snorts, which is always worrisome on a horse that you don't know very well. But there were lots of sighs mixed in, so I hoped it was just noise. He was being quite mouthy and fussy, but we did have a few moments at a walk where I had a nice contact feeling in my hand. Of course, there were also lots of moments where he curled his neck and sucked his nose back as a part of his fussing and I had zero feeling in the reins.  (Pretty sure we will be trying some different bits in the future!)

I started the trot going the sticky way. Pony Grandma had to swish the lunge whip towards us only once in the same spot that he had been sticky on my last ride. After that he still slowed down a bit in that spot, but didn't actually stop.

My goal for this ride was to add in a bit of steering at a trot, and make some turns in different spots than what I had been. And he was super good about that. I mean, our lines down the long side are totally drunk steering, and on the short sides his nose is totally turned to the outside, and we totally can't hit the track. But my circles were mainly the size I wanted and where I wanted them to be.

So I finished with him and went out and grabbed Phantom. On the way into the barn I remembered that I had wanted to order pizza for supper (50% off promo code!), and that they close a bit after 10pm, so I was going to have to hurry if I wanted to be able to pick a pizza up on my way home. Priorities.

She got tacked up within 10 minutes and I hopped on. And I knew right away that despite being able to play in the arena yesterday, she was still a bit full of herself. She marched around on a loose rein (which she never does) and I had to actually slow her walk down. Unheard of. So when I picked up the trot, I was surprised to feel that she felt short. She had looked super sound the day before when she was playing in the arena. WTF?

And then it clicked. I had just ridden Cisco. I think this was the first time I had ridden her after riding him at something faster than a walk. And it's been so long since I've ridden two horses back to back, that I forgot that the second horse always feels odd for the first few minutes. Right. Guess I'll have to get used to that.

So we zipped through a quick ride in which she felt pretty good once I remembered how to ride.

And I made it to the pizza place with 5 minutes to spare.