Monday 29 August 2022

A Quick Ride

Since we had a two-day repreive from the stupid hot weather over the weekend (fear not, it's coming back all week) I was really hoping to get on each of the ponies for an easy ride. For Cisco it would be a see how he felt evaluative kind of ride, and on Phantom I would be more concerned about how well I could walk post-ride. It's only been a few days since I stopped having any back/thigh related pain and I don't feel the need to overdo it on my first ride back.

I decided Cisco still looks a bit too off for my liking to hop on him. The swelling in his leg has come down, but at a trot he definitely looks uncomfortable somewhere in his body. He's not super lame but he's not right. It's only been a week since he stuck his leg through the fence, I'm not overly surprised that he needs some more time off. We'll aim for a walk ride next weekend when it cools down again.

I put him on the hard slanted pads behind and he didn't move for almost 10 minutes. I actually went out and brought Phantom in and walked her past him and I still had to peelhimoff the pads to turn him out. He obviously found some comfort from standing on them.

Phantom hasn't been ridden in at least three weeks. She's been giving me sad, old pony vibes lately, not in a hurry to go anywhere and always ready to take a nap, so I wasn't sure how she was going to feel.

She really wants to nap while being nebulized, but then she doesn't breathe deep enough, so I rudely have to make her go for a walk.

The plan for the ride was a 20 minute spin, mostly at walk, so that I could test out how my leg would feel afterwards. She initially toodled around on a long rein, taking slow, careful steps. I thought that when we picked up the trot she would do a shuffly jog, but nope - that released the Kracken.

I think we made it about half a lap around the ring before she attempted the first bolt. 

We had a total of three bolt attempts over the whole four minutes of trot that we did. It was partly just her being dramatic about the flies touching her face (I had forgotten to put on her riding fly mask) and partly because that's just what she does when she has excess energy. But we survived our 20 minutes and so far, so good for my leg.

It's going to be a quiet week as we all try to stay cool, but it looks like fall weather starts next weekend - my favourite riding weather.

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