Days Off = Not My Thing

It's been almost two weeks since I saw ANY horse of any kind. Yeah, you read that right; TWO WEEKS. I'm surprised I haven't exploded, or gone off on someone, or jumped off a bridge.

Luckily, I talked my dad into taking me to SunnyBrook today. On the 15 minute car ride from his house to the barn, I wouldn't stop bouncing in my seat and jingling the barn keys; I could hardly contain my excitement. Dad eventually just cranked up the music to try and drown me out.. I think it worked. Anyways, we got to the barn and he unlocked the gate and drove through, then shut the gate and drove down the long drive. Slowly. Why would he do that? Deliberately drive slowly just to be an antagonist? Why? I don't think he meant to. It probably just felt really slow to me because I was excited, as usual.

As soon as he parked, I threw on my coat and practically flew into the barn. KD was in the round pen (she's not allowed outside yet, because the muscles in her chest are still split from running through two live fences, even though the skin has healed) and whinnied at me, so I ran down real fast and pet her. Then I zoomed into the tack room, grabbed the first lead rope in sight, and sprinted out to the pasture. Chief came running; Missy, Lucy, Miss T, and Grinder speed walked to the far corner of the pasture. Pushing past Chief, I calmly followed the four that were walking away from me and cornered Missy. I secured the lead onto her halter and then turned and gave Lucy the biggest hug I've ever given her. I'd missed her so much it was ridiculous. She - along with the others - had huge tangles of burrs in her forelock and tail that I desperately wanted to untangle but really didn't have time. Missy and I sprinted back to the gate, went through, and walked up to the barn.

I put Missy in cross ties and as I was picking her feet, Asia came in wearing just a t-shirt and sweater. Is she crazy? Yes. She said she'd been sick, and I remarked aloud, "If you forget your coat, you'll just stay sick!" She laughed and put KD in her stall, then left promptly; I assume she got cold.

Moving on. I tacked Missy up, made sure her front boots and bell boots were secure, and led her out into the future outdoor arena. I made sure the snow wasn't so deep that she couldn't walk properly, and let her trot around a little to make sure she wouldn't slip. Then, I tightened the girth, donned my helmet, and got on. We walked for a while, then trotted for a long, long time. We preceded to walk some more. Then, I slid my outside leg back, squeezed with my inside leg, said "canter", and clucked.

With a powerful, firm leap forward, Missy broke into an amazing, flowing canter. I could feel her muscles rippling under me, fresh and ready to work. She snorted and tossed her head, gave a little buck, and sped up. I let her, yes I did. Honestly, I didn't care at that moment if she was behaving or not, I was just interested in letting her express herself, feel some freedom after almost two weeks of no rides, no visits, just loneliness and boredom. Of course, I couldn't let her be very fresh for very long; we had business to attend to.

We practiced bending, flexing, a bit of headset work, and of course stopping again. On our last ride, we worked on the beginnings of rating. I'm 100% sure she knows perfectly well how to do this, but I'm re-teaching her anyways. We canter up to a 'barrel' (usually the first barrel in the right-hand pattern) and, when we reach the beginning of our pocket, I set my hip angle back a bit and pull on the reins and say "woah". She stops. We roll back to the left (away from the 'barrel,' really just a pile of snow) and canter back to where we started; when we reach the starting spot I again shift my hip angle and pull on the reins and command "woah". After she'd had her brief refresher on that work from last session, I did the same thing, just instead of rolling back, we walked around the 'barrel' and then picked up the canter, cantering up to the second 'barrel's pocket and stopping at the beginning, again with the hip angle change and the verbal command. Quite simple, really; she had it down in no time. After she'd mastered that, we worked on stopping randomly.

How that works is easy: you pick up a canter, do a few circles or figure-8's, or just canter around the ring, then pick out a place a few strides away you'd like to come to a complete stop. Make sure you have some sort of visual marker to remind you of where that place is. When you are a few feet away, put all your weight in your butt, change your hip angle once more, and put a little contact on the reins. Don't forget to say 'woah'. If Missy didn't stop, I'd ask again. If she still didn't, I turned her in a tight circle and then asked again. Once you've come to a complete stop, pick up the canter and do more figures, then pick a new spot and ask for the stop again. Rinse and repeat, and don't forget to add little walks in there every now and again.

After those exercises, I walked her, got off, led her into the barn, untacked, brushed, and then stretched her. I did the foreleg and hindleg stretches, the neck stretches, and the tail stretches (ever done those?). When I'd turned her out, shut off all the lights, and gotten back into the car, I sighed. Dad asked what was wrong.

"Oh, nothing," I said.
"C'mon, what is it?" He asked.
"Really, nothing. I feel... revived."
All he did was smile, start the car, and we drove away.
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TJ texted me today. We plan to go to Victory tomorrow, and she'll ride while I give Zan some well-deserved attention. I might even get to ride Kota!:) I'm looking forward to it, especially because after that, we're going to the 4H meeting! Yay for happiness!

Enjoy the reset of your (hopefully) 3-day weekend, folks! Hope it's a good one!