This and That

Little bit of this and that from the last couple of weeks.

My last few lessons have been flat rides, mainly staying on a 20m circle. Cinder kinda lost the ability to canter nicely on the right lead for both A and I. She really wanted to go around with her head in the air and was convinced she couldn't canter on the bit. A has had me really focus on getting her deep and low in the trot, imagining I had draw reins on as my visual. Once Cin was steady in the deeper trot, then I was to ask for the canter knowing she'd come up a bit, but since she was almost too deep she'd come up to where we wanted her. I definitely struggled a bit, but at one point A told me to two point the canter and I lost it completely, but we've gotten some really nice canter work out of it. 

 

When I got to the barn for my lesson on Friday, A was tacking up Metro for a quick trail ride before my lesson. I mentioned a trail ride sounded nice and A told me to tack up early and we'd do a trail instead of an arena lesson. The BO had a mini excavator clearing out the stream and an old bridge at the bottom of the first part of the trail and Cinder was not too sure about it. We could hear it, but not really see it through the trees and I started to get nervous, so obviously Cinder got more nervous. And then Altivo, A's doberman, came running up behind us and spooked Cinder more. Cin is totally used to the dogs running around during trail rides, but she can be a little spooky if they come up fast behind her. She jumped forward into Metro, but being the saint that he is, he didn't care. Once we were in the woods I started to relax and so did Cin. We ended up having a great ride and I'm glad I kept going even when I was sure Cinder was going to loose her mind. 

 

After the trail ride, I watched A school a client horse, while the client was riding her other horse. A got off and had the owner get on so she could explain a few things and asked me to hold Brownie. He is the sweetest, cuddliest horse ever, so I spent a very fun 15 minutes getting loved on. The owner's other horse is a little bit of a local celebrity, and I've admired him for years, doing the junior jumpers before a certain former Olympic trainer in the area took over the ride and did the 1.50m on him. G, the owner, does the 1.10m with him now and I told her if she wasn't careful I'd steal both of her horses. I also really enjoyed being a bit of a barn rat, hanging out watching other lessons/rides and then shooting the shit with people in the tack room.

It was stupid hot for the end of summer over the weekend, hitting 91 on Sunday. I wasn't going to ride, just lunge, but when I pulled Cinder out of the pasture she resembled the Peanuts cartoon character Pig-Pen. The dust coming off of her was disgusting, so she got a fully soapy bath with a deep tail conditioning. She was not amused.

Terrible Twos

Cinder officially turned 2 last Thursday.  I had originally planned to do pics for her birthday, but since I got back from Africa life has been beyond crazy.  I caught a cold, then majorly tweaked my back; work has been incredibly busy and unfortunately the ponies kinda got put on the back burner for a bit.

 Right before I left for Africa Cinder's hives that had been off and on for weeks finally decided to stay on.  The vet came out two days before I left and we put her on steroids for 3wks and started the process of trying different bedding.  So far the sawdust the barn gets and one brand of bagged pine shavings don't agree with the princess.  We're trying pellets at the moment, and she comes off another round of steroids tomorrow so fingers crossed!

She was so mad

But there's progress!  Vet wanted me to try and rinse Cin off after each round of failed bedding to clean her up.  Only problem is she absolutely HATES the hose and getting wet.  I was able to sponge her off, but no time like the present to work on getting hosed off.   We had one major come to Jesus moment after she busted the crossties and jumped half way into a wheelbarrow during our first attempt at bath time. But with the help of a stud chain and cookies I've slowly been able to work our way up to a full bath.  She still hates getting her hind legs wet and will kick out (not at me, more stomping angrily) but she hasn't tried to vacate the wash rack or run me over again, so I'll take it.

So grown up!

We also started working on the longe more and revisited wearing tack.  She's totally fine being saddled and having the girth tightened.  She's fine walking with the saddle.  She's very not fine being asked to trot while saddled.  There was much rearing and head snaking involved. At one point she almost went over backwards but caught herself.  I was internally screaming as I had used my saddle instead of the crap Wintec on her.  We'll go back to using the Wintec until she's over her feelings about working under tack. I'm also internally screaming as she fits perfectly into Peeb's 48" girth.  Like, it was on the exact same holes as he uses. Just how big is she going to get?!