Almost foiled

 Poor Danimal. He's been a little bit on the backburner because... well, it's too bloody hot and humid and I don't have three rides in me these days. But also because he knows his job and I don't want to drill him because of his stifle. And partly because the girls are doing some fun things and need to be worked for various reasons. But I finally got to sneak in a ride on him today. And it almost didn't happen!

Today was Mike day so we went to drop his ducati off at the Roswell store for it's maintenance. We were going to go to the lake after but... we ended up buying me an E-bike that goes 60 mph! So it's essentially a baby almost motorcycle. It doesn't even have pedals.. just foot pegs. But the one we wanted was at the Conyers store, so we ate lunch with his boss, then went to Conyers and bought the bike and then Mike rode it home while I followed in the truck. And then I practiced at home in the neighborhood. And jeepers.. it's kind of scary! I only got up to 32 mph on straight lines. And I almost crashed into the neighbors mailbox. Oops. But I didn't. And then I ran out of charge. Well, it was down to 5% so we brought it back home to charge. At that point, it was close to 5ish, so I asked Mike if he cared if I went to ride and he said no, so.. a friend and I met up at Ashland!

When I left the house it was still stupid hot and miserable. My truck actually said 100 degrees but then it dropped to 98. But then as I got closer to Ashland the sky started looking a little dark. Hmmmm. And when I pulled in to Ashland, it was thundering. The big rolling thunder... Jamie and I debated whether we should risk it... but we finally decided that we would, since we were already there. We tacked up super quick and headed out.

 

She was riding Jack, her leopard appaloosa and Dan was smitten! He's got a thing for leopards apparently. He was super friendly and then started kissing on him and nibbling his face. Jack was a good boy and just kind of sat there like "okay, weird.. but okay". Hee hee. We tried to stay in the woods in case it started to really rain and we didn't want to be an easy target for lightning. But we got lucky. It never did more than spit for a few seconds. We hacked to the lake and then it seemed safe enough that we headed across the dam to the hay fields. We trotted on the gallop track and as we were coming across the big hay fields we started to see some lightning in the sky. It looked like heat lightning, but... we decided to get back in the woods and head home. 

 

So it was a short ride. Only 45 minutes but it was still fun. It was nice to get out and the storm made the temps a bit mroe bearable! Actually a lot more bearable. Plus, it was getting dark which helps too. I still had to hose Dan off though. On the way home the sunset was lovely but there was a LOT of lightning. Not just heat lightning. Actual streaks too. So it was probably a good thing we headed in earlier and not tried to stay out longer. Dan felt good too and seemed to be walking faster. His trot felt good and apparently Jack had to canter some to keep up. Also, I've been noticing him running and playing in the pasture more so I do think he's feeling better! Yay!

 

I don't think I like this green pad on him. Maybe it's the "yellow" part to it...

Twirling....

 So maybe he is feeling good..

videos: twirling at sunset...

also his twirling weenie ;)

Feeling good???

I slept in this morning. It's my only morning til the weekend and I've been so tired as I'm not sleeping great. But last night I actually slept decently. After I fed ponies I went inside and ate breakfast and let them graze. But it was getting hot and only going to get hotter today and this week, so... I went back out and decided to ride Dan first. I caught him easily but then I was letting him follow me on the end of the lead rope and as we got close to the gate, he just took off! To be fair, it was easy... I was not paying attention and had a loose grip. He cantered off and went and stood by the hay shed. But he let me catch him easily enough again. Of course he set the girls off so they were running and bucking and carrying on. Which made him a little more animated but I did manage to keep him politely walking and we made it all the way to the trailer. Okay... I'm hoping this means you feel good and not you feel so bad it's worth taking off to avoid a ride. 

 

We tacked up and headed to the arena. He was good. We did our warm up, although not much because he's already cantered! ;) We started out pretty nice and had some nice trots and canters. We played with the obstacles but also focused on some dressage. We did our circles and got a nice soft and balanced trot. And canter. He held his canter the whole time I asked for it, which included a full 30 meter circle and a straight line, but he was starting to falter, so I asked him to come down out of it. I do think he's getting stronger though. He was a bit of a turd in the livestock pen.. just was dragging and not marching and when he did march, he was so haunches in that he was falling into the inner circle. So I had to do some leg yielding and haunches yielding to remind him how to move! And we did some rapid transitions to help get him a bit more responsive to my aids and bit more animated. It helped. We also got two nice turn on the haunches (I think at least) between our circles. He did the reinback switch cup decently and we had a few good goes at the gate. The single serpentine was nice too. We also did the jump twice and he is getting good about just trotting it. However, that makes me a little worried it's pain. But maybe not.. maybe he's just not as painful so he's not throwing himself over it??? I don't know. He did feel a bit weak behind today at times. I do think his stifle is bothering him. When I felt him "falter" a bit, I would go back to walk or some some less stifle stressing things. Like larger circles or straight lines. Oh, we also trotted some trot poles too and he was quite nice through those.

 

We finished up and headed to the field to hack home. But I kind of felt like I wanted to do a tiny bit more, so I asked him to trot a little and then do one canter circle. Well.. he tried to take off and head back to the girls. He knows he can put that big ol' head of his down and just power through my bosal aids. Bad boy!! So I finally got him turned back and back to the trot and then we tried again. And then he put his head down and went to crow hopping. Naughty!! We got a very nice trot and then I asked again and we finished with a nice canter circle both ways. He felt good out in the field... l didn't appreciate any weird stifle things. Maybe it's adrenaline? Maybe it's footing? Maybe it's me just being overly analytic? Or maybe he's just lame and it was harder to feel on terrain. 

He got a nice long bath because he was blowing hard. He was literally dripping sweat. It's sooo humid. But also...don't go crow hopping and you might not have to work as hard or long. 

Fun day with Friends

 Today I did the cavaletti clinic with Lyric in the morning and then after we got home, I grabbed Dan and headed to Ashland to meet Sharon. 

 

We took a moment to look at my "outfits" for the show. She's so nice and offered to let me use either of her green breastcollars, but good golly.. I still haven't found a way to match my green saddle pad with the green breastcollar and a green shirt. Sigh... I can get two out of three, but not all three. But we did decide that the two turquoise outfits I had would be good options. One was the more teal and one was the more turquoise. So yay! 

 

Then Sharon loaned me one of her 1" thick pads to use as a liner for my wool blanket, since the 1/2" pad didn't work for him. And.. it worked great! So she sold it to me for $20. Sweet. And I put his turquoise and cream blanket on over it and we rode and he seemed quite happy. I also finally moved his homemade headstall over to the buckaroo bosal to test that out and he seemed quite happy in it. Although at the end of the ride I was pulling on the reins and pulled it halfway off his chin. Ha ha. I should have taken a photo... he was goofy looking. But yay for functioning tack again. 

 

Anyways... we got tacked up and Sharon went to lunge because Baylor had a bunch of time off since he bucked her off. Good thing she did because he was rowdy!! So I took the opportunity to go ride in the arena real quick. We warmed up very briefly and then trotted a tiny bit. And then I ran through our WE test and then played with some canter. Just enough to test out the saddle pad and bosal and make sure we were in good working order. He felt good and happy and seemed content. And we had a nice run through of our test so yay. Then we saw that Sharon was back at the trailer putting her bridle on, so we headed back.

 

We had a nice walk to the lake and then the boys splashed forever. Then we walked down through raccoon loop, crossed the bridge, and went alongside to the big creek crossing and then back up. As we came back up raccoon loop, we saw three little boys heads bobbing along. No helmets, so I'm pretty sure they were just on foot. They scared the horses a tiny bit so they stool tall and stared before they were willing to carry on. By then the boys had taken off down the trail. So we carried on and ended up taking the same trail they had, but we never did see them again. But then I saw a phone on the ground! I yelled for them, but they didn't respond, so i got off and picked it up. Luckily there was a fallen tree I could use to hop back up on. We hacked back and untacked and then Lucy came and got the phone. Good! I didn't know what to do with it and it was locked so I couldn't even call a number on it to tell them to let the person know. I suspect it was the kids that live near there and technically they were probably trespassing. But... oh well. Hopefully they won't get into too much trouble. At least they'll get their phone back. Assuming Lucy can figure out who it is. 

  

It was a fun ride and relaxing. 

Finally another ride

 Dan lost a shoe after our last ride but luckily Patrick came two days later and got it back on. I never did find it though. Or Lyrics missing shoe, but at least hers was at Ashland. I looked for Dan's for three days and never found it. But we got to ride today because it's back on!

 

I rode Funny first and when we finished it was rumbling almost non-stop. The skies were a little dark so I sat for a few and had a popsicle. But then.... nothing happened. And nothing kept happening. So I checked the radar and it showed a big bad storm in a little less than an hour. But, I decided to go for it. I was hoping that we could do a quick ride and beat the storm vs wait it out and then maybe lose my momentum and not ride. So I said a quick prayer and went to get Dan.

 

We tacked up super speedily and headed to the arena. We did a tiny bit of walking but then picked up the trot pretty quickly since he had been in the field and I didn't want to get rained out before we did anything. But we lucked out. It barely sprinkled a tiny bit and we were able to get in a full ride. In fact, it didn't end up doing anything so we could have ridden as long as we wanted. Which, we kind of did. 

 

We had a decent ride. He felt a little bit wobbly/weak in his hind end and didn't want to load that right hind. But he was a good boy and we had a decent ride. We did some trotting and cantering in general and then we played with the obstacles too. He wasn't as good as he was the other day, but he was still quite good. His canter was good too. And he didn't fall out of it at all, so yay. 

 

 

He's BACK!

 As much as he can be. :) 

   

Today was Dan's day to go to Ashland. He got in big trouble though before we even got there. He stalled on the way to the trailer but at least he peed pretty quickly when he stopped and didn't stop multiple times. But when I went to put the trailer camera up, he smacked me with his mouth in the shoulder. Dude.. that hurts!! I know he didn't bite me... but still.. watch your giant head and quit slinging it at me! I yelled at him and then told him to stop being such a butt! Grrrr. 

   

But then by the time we got to Ashland we had both forgotten and he was decent for being tacked up. It helped that we were chatting to Amanda who was there, so I was distracted and didn't pay too much attention to his snarky faces. If there were any. :) 

   

We headed out and had a great time. He still feels a bit weak/wobbly/sticky in his hind end at the walk. But he was game and walking forward, abeit not as fast as he used to. We trotted a good bit and he feels perfectly fine when he trots. And then, because I wanted to get some cantering in, we cantered. And then we cantered some more. So, we had a lovely hack all through Ashland, aiming for some hills, and we trotted and cantered and walked. I kept the canter bits short and pulled him up as soon as he gave an inclination of wanting to pull up or starting to think about faltering. And his hind end behaved! He even got a little wild hair in one of the fields and took off with me! Not a full out gallop but fast enough that it was a tiny bit intimidating in the bosal! Especially because he put his head down and contemplated bucking. Once I got over the "shock" of it and the split second of "please don't hurt yourself or trip" I relaxed and we had fun and then I was able to pull him up. Glad you've still got it in you sir!

 

  

We went to the lake and splashed but I told him NO SWIMMING. Not with the saddle. And then we walked back. Well, we trotted a tiny bit to make sure he wasn't sore from the gallop, but he wasn't. 

  

Good pony! You've redeemed yourself from earlier. And you're so cute!