Just Call Him Singer

It's too cold to ride in the evenings after work, so I've only been managing to get on Cisco once a week when I can get out during daylight hours. Since the first two rides of the year had gone so well, I was pretty confident that ride #3, a week later, would go the same way.

It didn't.

I mean, all four feet stayed in the appropriate location on the ground. He wasn't "bad", he was just a wee bit spicy. Which for Cisco means I feel like I'm riding a sewing machine crossed with a giraffe. Very much lifted in the front end, but legs feel like they are going up and down in the same place.

I think he's also been talking to Phantom because he was doing a bit of her trick of launching forward, which shifts my weight back, which is a go aid, so then she's all "well, you told me to go" and gets all insulted when I pull her up. 

The good thing about my spicy meatball of a pony is that he is, um, extra fluffy at the moment, so after a couple of canters (in which I kept my hands way up while kicking him forward because bucking was definitely being considered) he remembered how to horse and stretched his head down and started to move across the ground.

Because he actually is fluffy and hadn't been clipped yet, the extra canter that I hadn't planned on doing left me with a sweaty mess to deal with.

The next day he got clipped.

I didn't realize we had vampires in Alberta. His winter hair was covering up the
evidence.

Which meant that for the next ride, another week later, my sewing machine giraffe didn't get nearly as sweaty when we had yet another spicy ride.

What became apparent on this ride, is that I only really have a sewing machine giraffe when tracking left. Tracking right, I have a regular horse.

I'm not sure why.

It might be a balance/strength thing. Cisco's default when he's had some time off is to lean into his right shoulder, likely because his left hind is weaker. This also means that I have a much harder time connecting him onto my outside right rein. Not to mention my left-handitis where my left hand likes to hang like a dead fish on the rein.

Again though, he got much better after a couple of canters.

Cisco suffered what I believe to be a Bitey-Face injury and took a chunk out of his lip. He still got ridden.

Since the weather is supposed to be a bit warmer for most of this week and I might actually get a couple of evening rides in, I thought I'd give him a chance to go for a run in the outdoor arena, which will hopefully result in a sane horse when I next hop on.

That didn't go as planned.

There was way more snow in the ring than I thought there would be. I thought people had been getting their horses in there, but other than a spot that was being used for lunging, most of the ring was untouched.

Just a wee bit "fluffy".

Or it was, until I had to trudge through it to shake the whip at Cisco, which would send him in a gallop to the other end of the ring, where I would trudge on down to, to repeat the cycle over and over again.

10 / 10 - do not recommend.

I was exhausted. The horse, not so much.

I'll be back on my sewing machine giraffe on my next ride.