What to do with sweaty horses after dark...

I took Bear out for a fantastic trail ride today, but that meant that I didn't get back to the barn until almost 5pm. So inevitably it was getting dark and cold by the time I worked Lola. I was just planning on lunging with the vienna reins so that we could have a short and non sweat inducing work out, but that never works out like planned. She was doing so well tonight, and she was eager to offer the canter. This is huge for a horse that was convinced she couldn't canter a 20 meter circle in the indoor last winter because it was too small! She was coming down to the trot and just asking to canter again and again, and she was doing it so well that I let her. She clearly needed to blow off some steam after being left behind today, and they were such beautiful canter departs that it seemed like making the most out of the situation. It meant, however, that she was plenty hot and sweaty by the time we were done, and after 20 minutes of slowing it down gradually through trot then walking, walking, walking, she still was wet.

I have been having this problem lately. What do I do with this wet horse when its getting colder and colder, but she's too hot to put the blanket on??? So I made the most of the long cool down ahead of us. I took the saddle off, threw a cooler on her, and hopped on bareback. I figured if she was going to have to walk it off for another half hour minimum, I might as well be training. We worked on a good quality walk on the bit with collecting and lengthening her stride. We worked on backing the L that I set up with poles, and then started some leg yield and side pass warm up attempts. She can side pass both directions, but her leg yield to the left is never like it is to the right. So I really worked on getting her to move her haunches, we made a square and at each corner I asked her to move her haunches out in order to turn the corner. Like a turn on the forehand each corner. We then moved that to more of a constant pushing of her haunches out around the circle and then tried another leg yield. Magic! It actually felt halfway correct! And really, halfway correct is as good as any of my yielding or lateral work feels.

We played around a bit more with side passing the L, and then opened and closed the gate to the arena. By time we had done all that, she was dry! She was all cooled out, and we both had more fun than if I had hand walked her for 30 minutes! I bet are all suspicious about all this playing around with trail obstacles! More on THAT tomorrow....