First Rides Post Injections

Peebs was cleared to ride last Wednesday, 4 days after his injections.  Unfortunately that was farrier day, and after holding him and Cinder for the farrier in 36* I was too frozen to ride. So Peebs got a light lunge and I bumped our first ride back to Thursday.

Missed that view

We had a nice long walk warm-up, with lots of lateral work because someone was feeling a bit fresh and needed to engage his brain. We did about 30 mins of walk-trot, mostly walk, and the whole time I was second and third guessing myself about his soundness. He did feel stiff, but it was more of the "its cold and I haven't loosened up yet" type of stiffness than the "I'm lame" type.  Peebs did get a lunge before we rode Friday, and felt much better.

Used to be terrified of puddles.  No fucks given Saturday

Saturday I hauled him over to friend A's to ride and spend the night as we were having lessons on Sunday. I had to work last weekend and wouldn't have time to work and haul over before my lesson so A was kind enough to let Peebs spend the night. It has snowed and rained Friday and A's arena was wet and a bit deep in spots, but it worked great for us.  The footing was just deep enough to make Peebs work a bit harder and tire him out, but not deep enough to be unsafe. Also, he apparently has gotten over his phobia of puddles, splashing through them without a care in the world and standing in one so I could get a pic.

We kept the jumps small for our lesson Sunday, mostly trotting cross rails. Peebs still wanted to get crooked and bulge right while tracking left cantering away from some of the jumps but it was better than our last few jump sessions.  My instructions was to disengage during those moments, let him be, then continue on like normal.  My normal reaction is to ride hard and try and correct him which usually makes him more upset, so trying the less is more approach is hard for me.  But I did it and we had some decent rounds.  We managed to string together a little trot course including cantering through a line on the left lead without incident.

BFF for lyfe!!

My original plan was to take Peebs home Sunday after lessons, but the weather was supposed to be nice Monday and A offered to let me stay another day to take advantage of her arena. She also wanted to use Peebs for an experiment. Her gelding Scottie can be a little herd bound when turned out with other horses so he's been on solo turnout for a while now.  She wants to try him back with other horses and since he and Peebs are BFFs we put them out together. Scottie really wanted to play with Peebs, but Peebs was more interested in eating.

When I got to A's Monday and took Peebs out of the paddock he and Scottie called to each other once, then both seemed fine.  In the past Scottie would call and pace almost nonstop but the couple of times I checked on him he wasn't pacing and seemed fine alone.  Hopefully he can start getting turned out with buddies again.

It felt like spring for a day

I'm so happy A let me stay for an extra day because Monday afternoon was perfect!  It was 60* and sunny and felt like spring might actually be on it's way. I took advantage of the jumps being up and did the same course we had done the day before then put a couple of the fences up to verticals.  We still didn't have issues cantering through the line, but Peebs wanted to get crooked cantering to singles so we went back to trotting.  Cantering off the right is fine, so we did some fences that way.  We have another lesson at A's this weekend and I have a couple ideas I want to bonce off my trainer about our left lead issues.

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.

That’s my champion hunter #muchgrace #soelegant #mylifeflashedbeforemyeyes #hethoughtaboutstopping #butjumpeditanyway #honesty #hehasit

A post shared by Molly Basney (@mollybasney) on Jul 4, 2018 at 5:55am PDT

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!