April 15th, 2020

This being in the middle of the week again, and the small human being home with her daddy meant I was a little short on time again.

However, I got out to the farm and started grooming Lady, and she was obviously backsore again. That dampened my energy a little bit, but honestly I’m telling myself not to worry about it too much until I can get her feet trimmed. Her toes are wayyyyyy too long, and the vet also thought the other day that she would move ten times better once.

But, despite being a bit sore, she seemed to be feeling pretty good! I generally tie her to my parent’s porch railing while I feed and tack up, and while I was in the house grabbing a few things she decided to climb the steps INTO the porch. Okay then. And as soon as I put her back out, she thought it would be great fun to buck and whirl around with the other horses. So I’m definitely not all that worried. Just motivated to get the trimmer out here – I’m going to be trying out a new guy that my vet recommended if I can get him to come out, so fingers crossed!

Between not having a whole lot of time on my hands, and her soreness, I stuck with feeding, grooming, and then jumped on with just a halter and a lead rope and played around for a minute. I’m still working on my strength and my leg aids are kind of inconsistent, but I wanted to see how well she would respond without as much rein. The verdict is that she understands more than she wants me to believe, but also that she doesn’t really like listening. Lol!!

April 29th

This was the day that the spring crazies showed up in full force… I had given Lady almost a whole week off to let her back ease up a little, but we’re still waiting on the trimmer, so still not doing a lot of hard work anyways.

She was good to start out with, although a little antsy about the grooming and the fly spray. I don’t remember this aversion to fly spray before. I guess I should probably try and work on that at some point. She might also just be more sensitive right now since she just recently shed out and that thin Arabian skin is… super ticklish. Haha…

I got her tacked up and out to the arena space and figured we would start with lunging… I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t sore or off or whatever. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been able to tell even if she was because she took off like a maniac. She was quiet on the lunge line for about two circles and then her energy spiked and she let loose. Instead of the 5-10 minute lunge warmup I had planned, we spent 20+ minutes trying to find just some semblance of relaxation. Spoiler: we never found it.

I eventually had to just admit to myself that there was no fixing this situation. It was not her day and it would take a miracle to make her actually calm again. So I gave in, settled for her obeying basic ground manners and we called it a day.

May 9th, 2020

There were a lot of factors that played into the week and a half that I didn’t ride, but I finally made it out there this last weekend and the craziness was still there, but it was slightly more subdued. Texas is starting to warm up a little now and it feels a little closer to summer, so maybe the heat helped a little. Who knows.

Lady was still definitely HOT, but she wasn’t nearly so jumpy, just restless and very forward. I can deal with that. She was a good girl for grooming and tacking up and she was pretty forward when I lunged her, but there was no bucking in the canter, no rearing when she changed directions, and she actually paid attention to what I wanted her to do. Good enough for me. Lol!

Once I was on, it was clear that trying to walk was going to be pretty difficult for her, but at least she didn’t feel like a frantic bolt waiting to happen! We did some circles and loops in the arena and I quickly let her pick up the canter because that’s what she wanted to do. I wasn’t sure whether she’s really ready to do that much cantering, but continuing to hold her back wasn’t going to work either, so we did it. Big loops and practicing being able to rate her instead of just reining her in were the main aspect of this ride and I enjoyed it! I really took the chance to work on strengthening my lower leg and not pinching with my knees – hard work, but soooo worth it. I didn’t do so well as I got tired but that’s okay with me. The good moments were really good.

We didn’t have a very long ride, but it was a good one and I was quite happy with how it went. Next step is to get some barrels and obstacle/points in that arena space so that we can work on our precision a little more and have some actual purpose to those big loops.

But of course, it’s supposed to rain now for 6 days so that’ll probably ruin the ground and cancel another week’s worth of rides. Ah well….