The Little Things

I am continuing to love my barn! Yes, it takes forever to get out there - a huge chunk of my time is spent on driving there and back, but I love the barn owners, I love that I never have to ride with anyone and I love that Jetta is well taken care of. The BO sends me little updates every so often. Today, since there's some city excavation going on behind the individual paddocks that Jetta usually gets turned out it she got to go in a slightly larger turnout with her "mare friend" Cool. Cool is super cute and adorable but I say "mare friend" instead of "buddy" because her and Jetta tolerate each other but not much more - typical mares, lol. We'll see if this relationship ever makes it to the "buddy" stage.

The BO works hard to make the barn environment welcome, whenever there's a new boarder coming in there's a nice little note on the board welcoming them in. Today there was a notice to start getting their blankets ready if you want them to start putting them on - and I love that they don't mind taking it on and off with no charge! The barn I first boarded at 2 years ago charged $5 per put on/take off. Ridiculous. I love riding before the horse's dinner because the radio plays all day over the speakers in the arena. Another major plus? The food! There's a mini fridge in the "rider's room" with waters for people, a box with random snack food and today there was a box of donuts and some grapes next to the bucket of apples for the horses with a note above them to help yourself! Food is always a good thing :)

Noms

Just all these little things add up and make me love this place. And the fact that Jetta continues to do well under saddle means a lot too. Today she was much more mare-ish, still in heat, sigh. A mare's heat (estrus) is 5 to 7 days instead of a lot of farm animals which is only a couple days (fact brought to you courtesy of my repro class!) so we may have a few more days of this considering I noticed on Monday that she was in heat, a very obvious fact when she's peeing everywhere. Overall though, she was very relaxed, wasn't rushing or falling on her forehand, had a really lovely trot and wasn't bearing down on the bit so I was happy. Had to work a lot on getting her to respond to my legs to get her to lift her inside shoulder - she didn't want to listen to it and if I pushed the issue she'd want to kick. Unfortunately typical for when she's in heat but we worked through it and got some nice shoulder-in work and some better haunches-in than last time.

Happy pony waiting for her apple

The BO and I have also decided to have an eventing trainer come out - I'll take lessons maybe every other week and she'll put her horse in training three days a week. I've never heard of this trainer so we'll see how it goes. Basically, I just want someone who will push me to do the things I always put off for another time (*cough*stirrup-less riding*cough*) and will be the eyes on the ground to remind me to sit up straight, back flat over the jumps, more/less release, heels down, leg on, etc. As long as she doesn't interfere with how I want Jetta's training to be and Jetta doesn't get any worse under her instruction I'll be happy, even if she ends up being a "mediocre" instructor. We'll just have to see once November rolls around!