I had to work on the holiday Monday so I didn't get out to the barn until the evening. Once there, I had to spend a bit of time putting the final touches on my project that I have been working on. (It's almost done. I'm hoping I can get the last thing done on Wednesday, so check back on Thursday for lots of pics!)
 |
| Cisco made friends with barn kitty Jerry. |
The plan was to hop on Phantom and then lunge Cisco, and hopefully get home around 10pm to eat supper.
Phantom started off a bit stiff, not uncommon for her after some time off. I started off really stiff. Sadly, not uncommon for me at all. As soon as I got on I could feel that my lower back was stiff. And when I closed my thighs to bring her back to walk when she jogged in our warmup, the psoas in my right thigh protested. So I didn't have big goals for my ride. I wanted to get Phantom to loosen up a bit and for me to be able to walk in the morning.
I threw the canter in early to help her loosen up. Except that I was still really stiff. My hips were not swinging at all. And Phantom was not amused.
I finally gave up on trying to look good and just slouched like a sack of potatoes. And Phantom said Thank God and softened up her canter. Sensitive mares sure teach you how to ride!
I attempted some sitting trot with the hope that my hips would start to move, had a decent shoulder-in left (the side that I can't ride) and did some trot-halt-trot transitions after she got a bit heavy after canter. My back started to get a bit sore in a different spot so that was a good time to end the ride.
Pony Grandma was with me, so I left her to finish up with Phantom and brought Cisco in. By the time I got him set with lunging equipment, Phantom was ready to head back out. So we followed her out the barn, and she went left to her paddock and I took Cisco right to the arena.
All I wanted was a quick relaxed lunge in the scary end of the arena. Yeah, didn't happen,
The good thing was that the scary end, wasn't really scary. Probably because he was too busy worrying about the fact that Phantom had gone a different direction from him, and their other paddock mate was calling for him. So he did the frantic trot at the end of the lunge line. And was an idiot to deal with anytime I tried to get him to stand to change direction.
So this resulted in a brain sweat. Which meant that it was going to be the night to learn about the blow dryer.
 |
| Brain sweat on his neck, girth area and stifles. Smelly, sweaty pony. Yuck. |
Cisco was pretty good when I used the clippers on him (after doing some desensitizing work) so I didn't think the hair dryer would be a problem. And sure enough, it wasn't. He seemed to enjoy it. Hard to say if it was the warm air he liked, or me using my fingers to fluff the wet spots up.
The coats on the ponies have really fluffed up the last couple of days. I have about 5 weeks of riding before they get a 6 week unofficial vacation due to my work schedule. I was hoping not to clip them until after Christmas when we can get going again, and thus only have to clip once. I might have to do a partial clip soon on Cisco though, since brain sweats seem to be a common occurrence.
No comments:
Post a Comment