Spring Sprang Sprung

My work seems to enjoy letting us have weird holidays off, so not only did I have Monday off, but I also got an early release on Friday afternoon. I hadn't ridden since Monday's awkward squeaky full seat ride, so of course I had big plans of taking Bailey outside on Saturday and was only vaguely sure I would die.

First, though, I spent part of Saturday morning and a portion of Friday oiling the panels of both of my Visions (reminder: I have two now. It's a problem) as I had finally gotten up the guts to email my saddle fitter, who is a saint, and when I finally went to take the photos of the Dressage saddle's panels she had requested, I realized that they were, if anything more dire than I remembered.  There were now sections of deep cracking where the longer dressage panels curve around Bailey's shoulders and flanks and compared to my jump saddle, the leather felt more like pleather than anything.

Fffffffff(un).

On the fitter's recommendation, I immediately went out and got some Neatsfoot oil and am beginning to bring the panels back. They still have a long way to go, but they seem to feel a bit better, so hopefully those poor panels are not a total lost cause. Speaking of, I know what I need to do tonight.

Anyways: Saturday I worked in the morning and then headed off to the barn with lots of rocking out in the car and dreams of all the fun things Bailey and I would do. And then I got on her... and she was a bit of a freak. I could tell she was up. How could she not, with the weather, and being in an indoor with a terrifying pony cart leaning against the wall. She was also very offended that I put her slow twist on her, and spent a lot of time being tense and reactive because I was shutting her down too quickly or too well and clearly the slow twist is the devil. And because I'm good at judgement, we joined J and some others for a  trail ride. Outside. I got on her after watching her bounce in an Arabian-impression-excited-circle around me with her tail flagged, snorting, because horses were playing, oh em gee! and we had a semi safe feeling walk around a part of the gallop track. When we got near the road to the neighbor's house (which runs across a small marshy ditch from one of the short sides) people were taking down trees with chain saws and lots of trucks and noise, and Bailey started to get... more up. And I tried to distract her by stopping, backing up, going forward, going sideways, etc... but the backing up yeilded a small, relatively unterrifying rear, so we got her past that quickly and didn't go around the field close to where they were working. 

When in doubt, prance.

On the remainder of the trails, Bailey seemed to resign herself to this weird walking passtime and alternated between power walking in the lead (despite having no idea where she was headed 90% of the time) and shockingly, not killing us on the bits of ice and snow the sun wasn't able to reach to melt. She was really quite good the second half, and even on the first, she didn't try to bolt or really freak out more than I could handle, so, I'm going to say it was a positive first trail ride! And yes, she is coming 8 and just went on her first trail ride. Those first couple years were rough, guys.

This was before it rained, FYI.

Monday was obnoxiously rainy, which didn't work well for my plans or for the already saturated layer of ground that has defrosted at this point. I tidied up my trailer a bit, and had a nice ride on Fox while waiting for J to show up, and then got on B. And she was a mess. She seemed to hardly realize I was up there - she was throwing her head and humping her back at the walk, spooking, and taking tiny strides when asked to go forward. Something was wrong, but she wasn't off, she wasn't injured... she was just... wrong. 

I almost got off and lunged her, but instead tried to take her problems in stages. We walked and trotted around semi normally. A canter session loosened her up more, but, as J said "It looks like she can't decide which end she wants to go up". She was hot, worried and offended, even though she was in her micklem and her snaffle. I was wishing I had grabbed a running martingale (of course, the one time I shrug and say, "she'll be fine" she's not). It took a lot of time and the arena emptying to just me and J for her to calm down, and she had a few good sessions of blowing and blowing, which is usually her tell for relaxing and coming down from being spooky. She still spooked pretty violently at nothing when we passed a door that has a gap so  you can see the aisle beyond, but didn't actually run into J's crabby mare, so she at least had grown some self preservation, if not some sense. 

Beautiful, if slightly crazy, BB <3

Bailey's bad ride didn't feel naughty to me, and I find that troubling. It felt like a big step backwards to being #anxietyhorse. I felt like she didn't trust me, and that for a portion of the ride, I hardly registered to her, despite being on her back and holding the reins. I think part of it was anxiety or not being sure how to handle some soreness in her back end (she will be spending more time in Back On Track items from now on) but it still wasn't encouraging. I can blame pain, or the weather, or the weird group of people who were in the arena with us doing weird and stupid things, but in the mean time, #anxietyhorse is going to make me worry. Maybe she will be just fine tomorrow. Or she might be a total psycho. 

Who knows.