Happy Birthday to my baby boy! Who is somehow now 15!!!! What?!? I remember that email post with the first photos of you... and then meeting you and scratching your bum at 10 days old! My how time flies. But we've had some fun haven't we??!
I'm so grateful your mine. Even though God's plan was not for you to be my Prelim 3 Day horse. You've taught me so much. And we've had so much fun anyways. I really hope that the next 15 years hold more adventures and trail rides and beach rides and shenanigans galore!
To celebrate today we rode at home. I probably should have taken you on a trail ride with Baylor and had a pool party, but... I really wanted to play with our new gate. And mess with your saddle. So... sorry bubs! We'll trail ride soon. I promise.
I started with checking his saddle fit. I think it's too wide for his angles but then too narrow for his barrel. If that makes sense. But with the shim pad on, it seemed to fit quite nicely. I took photos and sent them to Mark. And at first, I thought he was looking worse than he did almost 1.5 months ago, but... I do think he's actually filling in some trapezius. His neck just looks worse. I don't know how much of that is saddle fit vs going back to hard work. Because I feel like every single time I bring him back to work and come out of the bareback pad.. he gets like this. Every time. Sigh... Mark said he thought he looked better and is hopefully sending me another shim to use. So then i put his expensive bosal on and played with it and got it fitting a little better.
So we headed to the arena in hand. I wanted to do some in hand work and set up another ground pole to serpentine over. When we got to the arena I tossed his reins over his horn and let him wander. While I was getting another pole, he wandered over to the new gate and immediately investigated. He took the rope part and pulled it off the post and went to open the gate. No way?! You are sooooo smart sir! Except when he did that, apparently we didn't have the gate weighted enough on the outside so it tipped. ooops! So then I had to go get two things to put on the other side of the standard to help keep it from falling over. Good boy though Dan! Then he wandered around and was at Jean's end of the arena. They were apparently riding around their farm and had come up the backside and saw Dan there without a rider. She yelled for me. Awww, sweet! I'm fine!! Just letting him wander while I set something up. :) Once I got everything set up, I grabbed him and we played with the sidepass pole. He can go left way better than he can go right. Which, I think makes sense with the right stifle. Maybe?? Anyways, he did a pretty decent job and got cookies.
So then I got on and we rode. It was a pretty good ride. His canter felt quite good and forward, although I do wonder if I'm goosing him with the spurs! I didn't see any marks after my ride though, but doesn't mean I'm still not goosing him. And we were bendier. And the gate was so much fun! I'm so glad I have it. We tried it and the first pass was pretty darn easy. Like... okay, why do we need to practice this? And then the second pass... I totally forgot "how" to do it. Ha ha... Okay... yep, this is why. Then we did a few more tries and it's definitely going to take us a minute to find a technique. I can't do the two steps back, turn, and two steps back thing because... it doesn't work with him. He's long, the gate isn't bendy, it stabs us... But I can get it fairly consistently if we halt, then back up almost to the hinge letting my hand glide along the gate (drop the rope), then we turn through and then half pass back over. This also, in theory, keeps the cows in! But it's also way easier right handed vs left handed. And it definitely isn't consistent yet. So I am very grateful that I have it to practice. We played a bit more and got some nice work in and then we headed out.
I figured... the weather is cooperating.. let's take a walk through the neighborhood. It's your birthday... let's enjoy it. So we did. We had a nice ride and there was only one dog who did not follow us. And then another neighbor saw us coming and put his dog in the house. I thanked him and we chatted briefly, in a neighborly way. It was a lovely ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment