The Days, They Fly

Seriously how is it already Thursday?! It's crazy how fast weeks and months and a year has flown by - and I feel like I haven't done a damn thing. 

Monday, we did dressage. Shocker. It's dark when I arrive at the barn, or almost there, so to the indoor we go. BB and I worked on general dressaging - we had the indoor to ourselves and I foolishly left the door open, so she had a direct something to spook at, because hey, it's dark out there. The idiot girl is driving the gator back and forth getting hay from a round bale (why don't they just move the round bale?!). We did a long walking warm up, and I had a whip, and it was a pretty ok ride. Things were just about to get better because I finally got over the door spooking and closed the fucking door.

Cue shitshow girl arriving with ugly paint horse, riding bareback in a halter, who opened the door with a giant BANG and then was like "....door."

That's not how that works, honey. And don't tell me you like my horse, either. You admire my horse because she's well trained and well cared for - something neither of your horses are. You jump your TB in a barrel racing bit and can't figure out how to teach your horse to jump calmly and not bolt after every fence. And you're too damn proud to ask for help or take a lesson. So don't look at the horse that I've poured two plus years of my life into and tell me she's wonderful. I know she is, I trained her.

I is best poneh, mahm.

Anyhoo. Sorry for the bitch moment; I'm not actually sorry. Monday's ride was pretty ok. Wednesday's ride, despite a natural horsemanship clinic where the clinician was using a stand speaker which he parked at one end of the arena and then rode on the other half. So we rode with a giant speaker randomly emitting a man's voice, and Bailey mildly lost her shit for the first 10 minutes. The spook-rear-throw-self-sideways routine is lovely to witness, I'm sure. The thing is, after about 10 minutes, she picked up her shit, and while she was spooky in a "MUST LOOK AT THE SCARY SPEAKER" way, she went to work.

This is monumental, folks. 

We had a nice ride, and she didn't work herself up into a lather like Monday night. We worked on getting quiet, controllable gaits at the walk, trot and canter, did some walk-canter transitions and did a little compression-extension within the gaits. She was pretty good about not getting braced against my hand despite wanting to carry a lot of tension in her whole body - she alternated wanting to brace, softening and then trying to stretch down into stretchy trot because "oh, gosh, that was stressful". The walk canters are still rough to the left, but are prompt and GREAT to the right, so we have clear homework there.

Fanciest baby.

The compression-extension is another area that needs work. For a while there, BB was able to pull up through her withers and just power herself forward in this glorious trot with a little snap at the end of the stride that felt sooooo fancy. She showed a little in the canter too, and is so much more willing to condense her body and try than she has been before - but again, she's a little weak, and in the trot she doesn't quite get the lift she used to, and in the canter, she often pops her lead in the back.  So we have some strength to go after, too.

I put the baby in the Back on Track blanket to eat dinner and relax while I rode Fox. Fox was crabby, and totally had the zooooooms last night - this doesn't work well when we don't have the indoor to ourselves, so she was tense and just wanted to go forward forward forward (and possibly buck me off...). She did feel strong and was more supple by the end of the ride, so I was happy. Next time I'd like to stick her in a full BOT outfit beforehand to try to reduce any soreness on both ends of the ride, and hopefully will be able to let her go a bit to work off those zooms. She zoomed on the lunge the other night, too, so I think she's just enjoying the weather and needs a little time to play. Bailey has been playing hard this week - running and bucking and running some more, so she's taking care of herself. They both seem to enjoy or be lit up by the cooler weather. Bailey also sincerely enjoyed the BOT and was sleeping when I got back from riding Fox. 

This horse still has the best muscle tone ever, at 19.5!

I still need to do laundry, clip, and take care of a handful of errands - the days need to slow down! I've got too much to do. I also was reminded by an annoying boarder that I should clip legs down - her horse has scratches from pastern to hock, and she didn't know what they were. Come on, lady. You said you've owned horses for years, and you currently own two loud paints with lots of white leg. Scratches seems totally a thing around here; and I'd like to avoid it. I also want to look into ways to keep the girls' hind legs cleaner. Both look like they're splashed with pee - probably from the wind since we're on a hilltop and it gusts and changes a lot. Maybe baby wipes? I'll have to go looking. 

More work to do!