Redeemed

After Tuesday night's twit fest from both of my horses, I was really hoping that they would be back to their normal selves on Wednesday.

It was another glorious day. I arrived at the barn just after 1pm and went right out to take off Cisco's blanket. Good thing I did since he was already a bit sweaty underneath.

Phantom was going to get ridden first to avoid conflict with her dinner time.

As I suspected, with it being daylight, she had no concerns about strange lights. She was her normal self in the arena. I was expecting her to be a bit silly at the mounting block, but there were no issues.

In the light of day, lit extension cord outlets are not very scary.

We did our trot sets again. I admit that I'm pretty sure I struggled more than she did at the trot on this day. I kept thinking that the set should be over, and there was always about another 40 seconds to go. I guess I need to do trot sets for my own fitness as well!

By the time I hopped on Cisco the jump lessons for the evening were starting up. Like last week, it had a bit of a warm-up ring feel to it, with 6 horses all going in different directions. We got a short canter in each way, but there was too much traffic to be able to do much.

Unlike last week, it was tough to continue riding while the group was doing the exercise of the night. So I took advantage of that to teach Cisco another life lesson - the one where you get to stand in the middle of the arena with your newfound buddy, but then have to leave him and go out and do some work. I tend to ride by myself quite a bit so this lesson has been somewhat neglected.

He wasn't at all terrible about it. He was pretty sure that he didn't have to trot forward after standing for a bit, but he quickly came to the realization that sucking back wasn't the best option.

Cisco's redemption for his bad behaviour on Tuesday was when grooming before and after riding. With the sun shining brightly in the sky, the temperature outside was somewhere around 15 degrees. Since the temperature inside the barn was much cooler, I decided to do my grooming outdoors. There is still too much snow and ice surrounding the hitching rail so we had to park on the cement pad at the end of the barn to be able to get the full effect of the sun.

And park, he did.

Standing out in the sunshine post-ride to try to dry off. 

I think he moved one front foot to the side so that he could stretch down to smell some poop. That was it. I kept the lead in my hand, but it was completely loose. I probably could have thrown it over his neck while I brushed him, but I totally did not expect him to stand that quietly.

So both horses redeemed themselves for the hijinks the night before. Unfortunately, due to having to adult for the rest of the week (oh, how I wish I was independently wealthy!), I only managed one more ride on Cisco that week, and thus I'll be starting off the new week with fresh horses again when Cisco gets ridden on Monday and Phantom on Tuesday. Oh well, the next 9 days are looking pretty good for saddle time, so I'll have to try my best to get out on almost all of them.