One side effect of being so dang sick and then having all of the end of the year stuff going on is that it took over two weeks for me to make my way back to the barn. Fortunately, it’s a full care setting and I don’t worry (too much, of course I’ll worry, horses can do strange stuff to themselves). When I can’t make it out, Mocha often ends up getting taken out and groomed by the college classes and she gets regular turnout. Not a lot of turnout, but then again the weather’s been crappy and the paddocks have been soaked.
The first ride back, on Tuesday, I took the time to clip her up and primp her a little bit. Girl likes that. She stretched her head out for me to clip her jaw and got a soft, blissful look in her eye. For some reason or other, she likes to have that area clipped. Something about the vibration must feel good. Then we did a light ride in the barn (short, both for her back and for my legs and core).
Today was a somewhat longer ride. We went outside and she lined out eagerly for the big outdoor ring. Spent quite a bit of time working in and around the railroad ties, mostly walkovers but some sidepassing and turns. We also did some chained canter circles with flying lead changes when we changed direction. Add in a little bit of schooling on rollbacks as well as a two track session and some other stuff and it really was a rather intense schooling session. Still in the snaffle because she’s having some problems with an inside bend going right, right lead canter is also a little rough. But that could be a slight bit of deconditioning as much as anything else.
We ended up with a long rein lope in one-handed snaffle. At the very end, when she was picking up a bit of speed on the right lead, I sat back and breathed “whoa.” No contact on the rein at all.
Her head went down, her shoulders came up a little, her butt sat down, and we stopped.
When I walked her off, I saw that her front feet had kicked up a little bit of loose dirt. And the hinds…well, let’s just say that while there was about a foot of slide, the divot she dug in was about an inch and a half deep.
And that’s barefoot.
If I put sliders on…actually, I need to get bell boots on her first. If she were to slide anything at all like her daddy does in his stallion video….eeek.
Needless to say, I didn’t have a camera. Of course I didn’t have a camera.
Oh well. It was still sweet, nonetheless. And she swaggered off pretty nicely from that one.
