What's Up Wednesday

 

I don't have much to report on this week as I've only ridden a handful of times since last Wednesday. Everyone survived my weekend away just fine thanks to a wonderful farm sitter. I think Al was a little perturbed by my absence. When I got home, he wouldn't come over and say hi. He ALWAYS comes to the door when he sees me. But he's forgiven me now. Phew!

I was hoping to jump today and get some fun media for everyone, but we had some dreary weather and all the horses were like meh. Let's go slow and not work hard. And I worked really hard to very little response from any of them, and basically just decided to flat instead. I did pop Shiny over a few things because I started riding her in Eros' saddle again this week and I wanted to see how she jumped in it. It actually seems to working pretty well for her now. The pads aren't slipping, and I think she jumped better in it than her own saddle. But she was SLOOOOOWWWWW. We did 8 in the 5 this week though, so better than last week. Lol! 

That saddle I found for her sold literally minutes before I went to dinner tonight. So that's disappointing. Back on the hunt. But in the meantime, Eros' is working out, so that's good at least. 

As for Eros... I think I worked him too hard in his workout bands earlier this week because he came out a little extra stiff and possibly more unmotivated than his sister. But he worked out of his creakiness and had a nice flat. I think we're getting rained out tomorrow (Thursday) but maybe over the weekend we'll try to jump. 

This photo makes me giggle a little because I don't think of Eros as a big horse (he is 16.3 which is a good size) but I look kinda small here! I think it's the angle.

Al's had an interesting re-entry to work life after his weekend vacation. The one thing I will say about this horse is that he's the same horse whether he's been ridden or not... And by that I mean you never really know what you're gonna get, and not riding him doesn't change that! Haha! I always laugh a little when I read that in sales ads because saying the horse is the same whether it's worked or not doesn't mean it's well behaved. Just means it's always the same! Anyway, I digress. I rode Monday this week since they didn't need four full days off. Monday Al was pretty good. I took it easy on all of them since it was the first day back and I had to be done a little early for Rosh Hashana dinner. But he made an effort to behave himself and I let him know I appreciated that. Tuesday was another story though. It was a warm day but pretty windy as storms were working our direction. And when I got on Al the neighbor decided it was the perfect time to make a whole bunch of noise right next to the ring. Al's getting pretty good at ignoring certain neighbor noise, but the wind in the trees had him pretty worked up. After walking for quite awhile and having a very low level of his attention, I decided to work him on the lunge instead. He was pretty good on the lunge so I figured I'd get back on and see what I had. He was still really distracted, and since he'd worked nicely on the lunge, I just spent some time at the walk cooling him down and working on getting his attention on me instead of the blowing trees. And you know what? By the end I'd say I had about 80% of his attention on me. I'll take that. I just had him dong a serpentine through the little gymnastic that's set up in the middle of the ring. I really focused on getting him to change the bend through his entire body each time we crossed the middle. The first several times through the exercise I'd lose his attention in the same spot, but by the last two passes through I had him the entire time without a change in pace or shape. And I quit on that. The difference between this week and a couple weeks ago was that I was happy with that win. Not disappointed that I only could accomplish it at the walk. 

And today? Today he was pretty great. Still very suspicious of the one long side, but I had him touching that side on both ends of the ring today. We'd go to the rail, around the jump and then head back to the quarter line. Rinse and repeat each direction. And we were able to do it at all three gaits! I had hoped to jump a little, but he tripped and nearly fell over the little cavalletti I wanted to warm up over and decided it wasn't our day for jumping. But we had some really nice flat work. Another win!

I mean really. Look at him! What a dude! So what if we're remedial. At least we look good doing it.

So that's what the horses and I have been up to. It was a really fun non horse weekend at the wedding with my family. It was fancy with cocktail attire for the rehearsal dinner AND the Sunday brunch, and semi formal for the wedding itself. So I was in heels longer than I've worn heels in the last what? 15 years? I'm properly unsound this week after all that. But it was fun to play dress up! Here's my dress for the wedding:

It's the perfect shade of hunter green and I really hope I find some other even to wear this to some day. I didn't get a photo on Friday night, but at least those heels were chunky! And here's me and my mom at Sunday brunch:

I'm 5'2" (And a 1/2!) so yes, my mom is really tiny. I do have a small heel on here, but still. She's SHORT! Also, note my high quality farmers tan on my arms. You can take a girl off the farm but certainly can't take the farm off the girl. And also yes, I had given up on trying to do something with my hair by Sunday. I really only am capable of hunter hair if we're being honest. Completely lost without a helmet.

That's it! That's all I've got for this week. Did you all have a good weekend?