Monday, July 23, 2018

Peebs Goes to Summer Camp!

More accurately, Peebs was summer camp.

Pony rides!!

My friend A, who used to lease Phoenix way back in the day, has a very cute little 4 stall barn with a couple pastures and an arena at her house.  She has one horse, and boards three older, retired horses.  She also takes lessons with my trainer. If she had had stalls available when I was moving, I would have gone there.
Showing off his dance moves

My trainer has talked about having me haul Peebs over there for lessons, or even just to jump on my own as A leaves a full course up most of the time and we don't at my barn. So before our last show I finally got everything arranged with A and trainer and took Peebs over for a lesson. Other than almost dying when Peebs thought about stopping at fence (see above and below) the lesson was a lot of fun and I made plans to go back the following week for another lesson. I'd forgotten how much I love A and her mom.


A's mom called me while I was at the show asking me if I knew of a horse that could give pony rides.  They had some family coming in from out of town with a few kids that wanted to ride.  A's horse can be a stubborn asshole and isn't exactly the pony ride type. I told her Peebs was available. He's been a lesson horse and I put my cousin's kids on him last summer for pony rides.  The plan was he'd stay at their place after my lesson for a few days while the family was in town then I'd take him back home. They have all the horses turned out 24/7 during the summer so they had empty stalls, and  a small dry lot paddock available for Peebs.

Our second lesson went really well again and afterwards I gave three of the kids pony rides while A had her lesson. Peebs was a little miffed about having to go twice, but was great for them. He settled into his stall there perfectly fine and I left after threatening to kill him if he hurt one of the kids. A took him out the next day for almost two hours of pony rides (just walking) since more family had come into town. She said he was good, if a little annoyed, but the kids fed him treats and watermelon, and spent a long time currying his itchy spots to make up for it. The last day the family was in town was one of the hottest days of the year and the relatives had to leave about midday.  So the kids and A got up at 5:30am to ride before it got hot and they had to leave. She let one of the kids ride on his own, aka she didn't lead him around, and once again Peebs was perfect.


It was way too hot to haul him home that afternoon or the next day after I got off work.  I'm not putting a horse in a trailer in 95*+ unless I absolutely have to. A and her mom were fine with Peebs staying an extra few days.  I took him home on a Saturday morning but not before getting one last ride and jump school in.  We mostly just futzed around over the crossrails set up but it was so nice to jump without having to set everything up then take it down again after riding. I'm hoping I can get over there more this summer, either for lessons or just hacking!

4 comments:

  1. That sounds like a ton of fun! What a good boy Peebs is for putting up with all those pony rides!

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  2. aw that's awesome! i love the oopsie moments too lol

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