Day two out at boarding school for Lola, its pouring down raining and mid-way through the day I start freaking out that even though her blanket said "waterproof turnout", I did buy it online and if they lied, that warm blanket would have turned into a fifty pound water logged mess! Does anyone else have little freak outs at work when you can’t do anything about it?
It poured just after work so I expected to find two drowned rats in horse blankets when I got there. The worries were needless. I was super surprised to find that they’re heads and necks were totally dry, their blankets were dry inside and out (except that tiny fleece wither guard), and they were warm! It wasn’t all that cold out, so I guess their body heat dried them right off!
I dragged the two in at once; it’s so nice that once I’ve found one in the dark pasture the other is right there too. I would really like some sort of blinking light on them… is that too much? I brought them both in to the indoor arena without much of a plan; it was late already, so I thought about what I could do with 45 minutes. I decided to only work with Lola, and then just maybe lunge Bear a bit in his halter if I had time. The problem was I left my phone in my tack box and didn’t look at the time until I finished, my 45 minutes turned into two and a half hours! Oops!
I just have so much that I want to be doing with Lola and not enough time. Not just training. Now that I have a blanket on her she’s going to stay relatively clean, but she still has months of dust from rolling in mud that is hiding under her long furry coat. So I spent longer grooming than I should have. Then I still haven’t unloaded everything from the trailer to the tack room, so I scurried around looking for things since I decided to get Lola’s English gear set up: finding a bridle, changing bits, testing out the saddle for fit, finding a girth that would fit, finding the dressage whip for in-hand work, all that and I still ended up getting out there without reins! Not that I needed them, no riding will happen until this weekend, and I’m sure I took them off to use the bridle as a lunging bridle, but now I need them back… hmm…
So I lunged her, and she got sweaty. She still needs to strengthen some muscles in order to maintain the canter on the lunge in that tight of space. My rule is they have to canter competently on the lunge without side reins before I put them on for the canter, then they should be able to canter with side reins on before I get on and canter. Going straight is one thing, but they need to be able to support themselves and balance on a circle before I can expect them to support my weight riding in that space. So after some canter departs I put the side reins on nice and loose and she did some walk-trot transitions. Then, and here’s were I must have gone terribly wrong with budgeting my time, since she was a bit sweaty I decided I would ground drive her to let her walk and cool off. She was turning well, and stopping, but as usual with a greenie, straight lines don’t make sense! But it’s a good exercise in following her head where the bit is leading her, and helps her stretch and bend. Then I just got totally carried away and worked on moving away from pressure in hand. She’s really good at it, but I’m trying to really drill it in so that my leg pressure will make sense.
So by the time all that was done I should have thought that since I had spent so much extra time with Lola I shouldn’t work Bear, but I forgot that’s what I had told myself and worked him anyway, just a bit and just in a halter. I was more than surprised when I grabbed my phone on the way out and saw that it was 10:30pm! She’s just so much fun to work with, I can’t help myself!
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