FINALLY!

SHEESH! Well finally after nigh on a week without so much as SEEING my ponies I made the rain stop for ten seconds so I could get the gumption to go out in the cold and actually lay eyes on my lovlies. It has been raining basically non stop since Sunday, and since I am a wuss about cold, I wasnt to sorely tempted to go play in the rain and the cold. Until today.

You see, I have been suffering from withdrawl, and today I finally broke and decided I would go see Mo and Indy no matter if it was a freaking Ice Storm the second! I went straight from work becuase I knew if I so much as sat down in my warm cozy house I would never leave. Plus, once you already have a zillion layers on, taking them off and re-donning them is really a pain in the bum.

I wouldnt say my horsey withrawl has been completely sated, but enough that I was able to come home tonight! It is so not the same seeing other peoples horses [namely the ones at work] compared to my own. I loves mine the best... obviously. And they are MINE. ALL MINE MUAHAHHAHHA. Erm. Ignore that. My brain still tends towards that of ten year old me who owned no ponies and wanted one desperately. NOW I HAVE TWO! BWAHAHAH.... *cough*

SO ANYWAYS!

I went out today. It was raining. It stopped for two minutes for me to call and badger and knock gae chains enough to get the horses attention and have them come over from waaaaaayyyy in the very farthest corner from the barn. YEY. Saves me a gazillion steps! It was so cute because Mo didnt really realize it was me calling them all in [usually its Aunty] and so she was just poking along, "Yep, Im coming" and when I noticed that I called her name and her head just went ZING up and her ears perked forwards and she just power trotted all the way over to me, through the other horses [big deal for her] and just gave me the best OH BOY YOU ARE HERE LETS PLAY look. Priceless! Love Mo!

I opened the gate right quick because Indy was hot on her trail and the two together make lots of nice kicking fights... better to get Mo out of the way! With Mo in the barn safely, the drizzle re-started and I went on with loving on my Mo. Who I adore. Did I mention that? We played with some bowing things, I am trying to get her to understand it without me leading her nose down and it is *almost* at the point where I can just point at either front leg and she at least thinks down and back, which is cool. She usually half does it and goes "See?? I did it! Cookies?" Which I can assure you is super adorable.

I started grooming her, since all those zillions of hairs take uber upkeep or turn into dreads, and her *sniffle* winter coat is coming in and shedding out her summer one.. *cries*  At one point one of the lights flickered and snapped and scared poor Mo who turned tail for the gate, but I turned of the line of lights it was in and she came back and relaxed right away.

I saddled her up with out new shim set up - I havent ridden her since I put the biggest gullet in the saddle. We played some more little fun things in the barn and then headed out the back. This is my new brilliant plan you see. Stealing from the racetrack training! When I have ridden we do jog laps. 2 in each direction. Well, I figure that the pasture is roughly the same circumfrence as the track [verrry roughly] so me and Mo, and eventually Indy to, can do trotting laps. This A] works on maintain gait, B] Follow the rail pattern and C] WORKS OFF FLUBBER from both of us! HAHA My ponies both had ... good summers. Neither are hurting for food going into winter. So with my new plan, we headed out and right at the beginning of my track there is a gate that goes out onto the laneway. Well darn if Mo doesnt just go crazy and freak out! One rein stop time!

I waited and waited with her until she actually checked in and licked my boot - thats pretty key with Mo, wait until she comes back to being curious and playful, not just stopped. Otherwise she just spins off again... We played some squeeze game with the spooksyness and moved on to our laps. Interestingly, keeping her trotting was not an issue. At all. Way to go responsibility number two! WHOO! She just trotted and trotted like a little energizer bunny. She sped up and slowed down a lot at first, and I also had to put her back on the rail a whole bunch, but by the second lap she was really getting the picture.

We changed direction after two laps and went two in the other direction, a lot less corrections! Still some, but she was really figuring out the pattern, which is what I wanted to see. It was also a lot easier to put her back on the rail, much more soft and supple instead of bracy and confused. After two trotting laps in the second way [this makes four total] I asked for a canter and we did 3/4 of a lap cantering. This was a little trickier, but not by much. We had pretty much established the Follow the Rail concept, so it was just gait I was being picky with now. Maintain the canter is usually a little less reliable with Mo because she likes stopping AND she is a trotting breed mix. So even though she has a loverly canter, its not so much her thing. She is comfy in the trot and can trot up a storm! You should see her play out in the feild! WHOA! GO PONY! Her "I think I am a hackney" days are a hoot!

Point being, the maintain gait responsibilty became a little fuzzy a few times. I think it was about four.. ish. I didnt count exactly. I should, I will next time. She always picked it right back up though AND the last time she dropped to a trot for two strides and checked herself back into a canter which was fabulous!

On the last line back to the barn we dropped to a walk, kept following the rail and walked right past the scary place with barely a glance. JOY!

Back into the barn, I untacked Mo and under her saddle was hardly even damp. HA. Have to wonder how much of the sweat off the thoroughbreds is from effort and how much is from being held back and them pulling so strongly.... I did my ride completely freestyle in the hackamore...  how interesting.

Anywyas, Mo and I played some more in the barn, I stretched her out on both sides bowing and then said goodnight and thank you. Indy was actually at the back gate too when I turned Mo out, which was nice.  I hope I can be brave enough tomorrow to go out in the yuck again, I want to experiment more with my plan!

:-)
S

Guess What!

Soooooo,..... Today! I rode a racehorse! I thought that was pretty cool! We only trotted, but it was full out in a racing saddle and everything! I found that pretty exciting anyways. One of the regular riders had a doctors appointment for the last set today, so I got to fill in.

In other news, have you hugged your horse today?
I have! I was away all weekend since Friday and missed my ponies terribly [and yes, I called to check up on them on Saturday night.. because I may just be that lame] Hugging them is just the best cure for missing my furry amis. When I got to Aunty's everyone was in the farthest far corner away from the barn and I was so pooped from the weekend and from work that I couldnt garner the energy to go *all* the way out there. Lazy right? Well.. its a big field, and I worked hard today. After hanging out with my cousins and aunty for a while I looked out the window to be delighted by the sight of my loverly ponies.

I promptly ran out to the barn calling out to all ponies belonging to me and lo and behold Mo was happily marching to the gate to say hi and Indy was hot on her heels. I had just enough time to give Mo some tasty treats before Indy came up behind her with nasty looks. Indy got her yummy things as well, plus her hugs. Then I ran out to give Mo hugs to.

Lots of hugs later, I do the typical me thing. I brought Mo into the barn to love on her some more and see if  I could come up with a way to turn her wonderful bowing into lying down. All at liberty :-)

I havent quite figured out the laying down part yet, but our bowing progressed to being easily accomplished on both sides by just tapping her leg a little bit so that was awesome! During that session I was really thinking about Linda's article about motivating a left brain introvert with food, because Mo was REALLY motivated! She kept offering me things in order to win a treat instead of just mobbing me for food, so that was interesting!

After playing with that for a while I grabbed the bridle and played with getting her to put her own head in the bridle by motivating with more cookies around the bit. That was fairly successful! One of the most simple, but amazing things I saw during my course time in Florida was Avery bridling Akiss, she held out the bridle in front of him and her just basically put his own bridle on. He went and got the bit, put it in his mouth and put his head in the proper position to have the headstall slipped over his ears. Simple, but fabulous. I would like to work towards that!

When everything was all set I hopped up bareback and Mo and I set off for a little trail ride. We played with some contact things, sideways and transitions within the trot on the trails. I got SO close to passage!!! Mo gave me this fabulous floating slow collected trot. It felt so amazing! I think we have been spending to much time in the ring and need to get out more! Oops, my bad! Of course, its pouring rain now and I have no clue if the trails will be useable any more! Mo and I had a lovely dash through the rain back to the barn.

Overall, great day I would say!

:-)
S