A Rodeo and The Beach

Such a crazy weekend! Luckily the horses got to fit in there somewhere.

Friday I mentioned that I was finally going to ride the monster pony. She had almost two weeks of lunging in side reins and finally looked sane enough to hop on. I had lunged her fairly hard the day earlier.

Did it help? I have no idea. She was a nutcase.

I don't think she's bucked/reared that much since that one time (almost two years ago?) she decided that she didn't want to be a riding horse any more. 

I'm quite proud for managing to stay on because there were some IMPRESSIVE moves in there. Including, but not limited, to the "drop shoulder and spin the opposite direction", "bronco bucking", "rear so high your rider thinks you're going to fall over backwards", and my favorite "pretending to get ready to rear, then snatching the reins out of your hands to take off across the arena". Fun, right?

Several of these... luckily none that involved me flying off.

I think it was a combo of time off, riding in a dimly lit arena and of course feeding time was happening in the loft. All sorts of scary things were happening during our ride and she just couldn't handle it.

Eventually we got some nice work. As long as she was moving forward in front of my leg and being soft in the bridle I let her trot out as much as she wanted. We didn't canter. Lots of reminding myself to drive her forward into the bridle (no pulling!), lots of 20 m circles getting her to bend and fill that outside rein. Lots of transitions.

We worked so hard last year to get where we were, I just want my nice horse that I had at the end of summer back! I promise I have a nice horse...

Take 2 will happen tomorrow. I will be wearing my sticky breeches this time.

In more uplifting news, I took Misty to the beach. A group of friends was going and invited me. I decided not to take "the crazy one" since I had no desire to be ditched into the ocean, even though Misty has never been to the beach and Jetta's been quite a few times and is quite good there.

It was interesting.... Definitely not the best group to go with for the first time since they were all spooky but one. There's only so many horses that the "good" horse can babysit at one time. There was tons of spooking at everything. Including the worst experience I've ever had with a person on the ground, being a complete jerk about being asked to walk instead of run with his stroller past us. I don't understand why people have to be rude... 

Overall though it was good. No one got bucked off (one horse did roll though but at least it was in the sand and not the water). No one got run away with. It was absolutely gorgeous out. Misty even hopped over some driftwood! Baby xc schooling right there ;) Eventually I hope to actually get her in the water, but at least she went in the little river.

AC, the girl I board with, and I are hopefully going to stick to a plan of going for two trail rides and one beach ride every month. I'm excited! It's awesome to be with someone who is motivated to do the same thing as me. And we both have Thursday's off of class/work so it will be perfect. Once Jetta regains her sanity I want to take her lots of places to start working on our fitness. First LD endurance ride is in May!

Hopefully next time I'll get some "real" photos with my nice camera. AC's horse was so upset when she stopped to take phone pics of me, rearing and spinning so we didn't get that great of pics.

I have no idea what I'm doing in this picture. I look like I can't ride...

Heading back to the trailer.

I just love this one. Gorgeous day and wonderful pony!

New best friends. William and Misty, sitting in a tree...

Cross country log! I wanted it.

At least she crossed the river like it was NBD.