Trotting Forward

The girls last weekend

Today was a lovely day.  This work week was brutal.  Most days I start at 10:30AM and there were several days when the work was finished about midnight.  

I managed to write a paper on Lyme Disease, whip together a powerpoint, do some worksheets, a couple of online quizzes, and put clothes on approximately five minutes before I needed to fly out the door before my classes on Thursday.  

And tomorrow, it begins again.

But that's OK.  My soul is filled again with happiness as I saw my girls.  

I rode Donni first.  Donni can be fussy in the bridle.  She spends the first 10 or 15 minutes of a ride trying to figure out if she can evade the bridle by poking her face out or dropping down.  My coach has described it as she has to tell everyone about woe is her and what a rough life she's had.

But with patience tonight she came around and we had some really nice trot sets.  She finally gave up on giving the evil eye and the sideways scurry at a marathon cart that sits in one corner of the arena. A good canter.

Not bad for time off horse. 

On our cooldown, she was calm and relaxed.  I rode her gently on the buckle and just asked her with my seat to turn, stop and go.  I'll have to figure out how to add back in there sometime.  I'm sure it's possible, but something to work towards!

Chili was also well behaved tonight.  She is quite a bit different than Donni in that she isn't so fussy in the bridle as long as her hair isn't touching her ears.  Sometimes when she is unhappy about something, she does have a tendency to shake her head, but she doesn't spend time and time again being difficult about it once I put my leg back on her and tell her to knock it off.

Chili did have a minor skitter when we were trotting by one sliding arena door and a big chunk of sand hit the door.  She wasn't especially impressed, so after I was done riding tonight I spent about five minutes looking like a dork kicking sand at the arena walls until she yawned, licked her lips, and said it was enough.

It's a good reminder that despite the joy in riding a nice young horse, there's always work that should be done on the ground too to build up her confidence with weird sounds.  ;)  I occasionally forget since I really don't hear all these sounds that bother her.  Not particularly fair, I suppose, but thank you Chili for giving us more homework to work on.  :)

Both girls got the winter mohawks trimmed down and a bit of the long shaggy fetlock hair removed from their legs.  Can't wait until they are full blown shedding and look more like horses again instead of yaks.

Wish me luck for this upcoming work week!  It's a crazy life, but I am glad to have the horses that share it.