What's Up Wednesday

 

Good news! My boots have finally cleared customs, so hopefully I'll have them in a few more days. Still super lame they're taking so long. But I'm just glad they're on their way! Also, follow up on those random Staples orders sitting on my front stoop... They're still there! Staples never came for them! Guess I need to call again. Now on to horse stuff!

If you recall, Princess Shiny was having sassy maritude problem last week. 

I really felt like it was attitude and not a physical problem, but you never really know that for sure, right? So I let her take the lead for a few days. Wednesday I let her spend the entire ride trotting. 30 minutes of trotting. It was boring. But she didn't kick out! She gave me some attitude if I asked for more trot, sometimes blatantly ignored me, and occasionally tried to drop down to the walk. I'm calling it a "Compromise Ride" as we both gave an awful lot but neither of us fully got what we wanted. The next evening I suggested canter, but didn't demand it. She offered it up one direction but not the other. I accepted that answer, but made her really work at the trot. So I won a little, but not all the way. And same for her. Mares. You gotta give to get some days. On Friday, I kept the pressure off at the trot, letting her plod around with her head up if she wanted, but I demanded the canter both directions. She complained, yes, but she did it. 

Normally Saturdays are our jump school days. I was on the fence whether I wanted to jump, but I know how much she enjoys it. I thought skipping it might not help our cause so I decided to do something a little different this Saturday. I set up some very small gymnastics for her with the plan to just work on those. The "jumps" were so teeny they wouldn't stress her body but they should get her mind working and focused on something. (Pivo and I had a little disagreement this day and I somehow recorded nothing, but thankfully I had propped the ipad up in the barn for backup video.)

I've never actually taken her through any gymnastics. She may have done them prior to moving here, who knows? I'm calling these her first gymnastics though, and she was great! She went right through everything I pointed her at. After going back and forth through the one stride a bunch of times I decided to play a little with some direct lines across the diagonal "jumps". Just for fun and to see how she'd react to something a little different than she's used to. Again, the obstacles were itty bitty so she could easily step over if things didn't go well. But she just locked right on and went right through. Total star! She wasn't super motivated, and there was a lot of breaking to the trot when we weren't aimed at fences. But I was so thrilled her with efforts over jumps I didn't get too demanding. Sunday we took a bareback toodle and then grazed for awhile. I think the easier week capped off with the easy day was just what she needed as her attitude has been improved so far this week. Thank goodness!

Eros has "Eros Wild" days still but he's been quite good otherwise. If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen this already, but I still think it's hilarious so I have to share here too. He saw or smelled or heard (I have no idea, my senses picked up nothing...) something in the woods the other evening. He wanted SO BADLY to turn and run, but he was trying very hard to be a good boy. And this is what we got:

I just think this is hilarious. I mean... that lean!

Anyway, he's working on more of the same. He'll be due for another re check soon, and after that I expect to start working more at the canter, including asking him for some shape at that gait. I've been letting him just do his own thing at the canter right now, but it's pretty inverted and not very organized. Our focus right now is at the trot and also on the trot poles to get him stronger behind. I set some individual raised poles around the ring this week instead of having them set like trot poles... It backfired on me a little as he kept jumping them. Oops. Doc had said it's okay if he did some little raised poles and landed in canter, so we'll just say that's what he did... He's no worse for the wear so I'm not worried about his "jumping". I still had poles trot poles set at one end of the ring, and he did those nicely. 

I'm happy with how things are going with him. I'm not sure if he feels more sound or not. He'll never be 100%, we knew this when we bought him. But I do think he's getting stronger, and he's getting his focus back (most days.) I think he'll be happier when he gets to jump a little too. 

Not too much to report on Pammon unfortunately. Our vet was moving into their new facility this week, so he won't be here until this Friday. 3 weeks after the initial injury. Ugh. Maybe we'll get lucky and Pammon will just magically be all better by then? Cross your fingers friends. In the meantime, we've been doing our hand walks. And I got him a new stall toy which he's pretty excited about.

It's a unicorn rope toy. There's a squeaker in it, but he hasn't found that yet. I can't wait until he does! He's been weirdly good for his walks. I'm not complaining... it's just weird! 

In other news, I got braid a horse this weekend! It wasn't my best work for a couple of reasons. First, I haven't braided since last year. But also this horse's mane was SUPER long and thin. 

I would have liked to shorten it way up, but I wasn't sure if the customer wanted me to. So I just did the best I could with what was there.

It was nice getting to be on my ladder again. I felt safe being at a different barn because I was there late and didn't see a single human. I did have a mask with me though in case someone came in for night check.

And that's about it from here. Did you all have a good week?