Days 162 & 163

Saturday

Back from vacation! I've missed Brie, Nina, and Harry so much. I haven't ridden in two weeks!

Before we went to the barn, we went to John and Jane's barbeque at the yacht club and grabbed some lunch because by the time we all woke up and got out there it was already 1pm! I met up with Annie and her new boyfriend and cousins and we all just hung around for a couple of hours until we left and went to the barn.

I was expecting quite a handful today, especially when mom said that I should ride Harry first so she could tinker around with a new bit that we're trying on Nina. I gathered up Harry after giving everyone much love and brought him out into the round pen. As soon as I let him off the line, he ran around like a maniac! I was happy he was getting it out of his system here instead of while I would be on him. After he started slowing down, I hooked him back onto the line and lunged him some more and he was responding super well to just my voice commands and didn't really try to give me any crap, so I brought him back in, cleaned and tacked him up, and into the arena we went!

I was also anticipating that he'd be a little berserk when I would flex him because he has been lately before we left, but with just a little kick and throwing my weight backwards, he gave in very quickly and stopped trying to start spinning around to throw me off. 

I was super super super surprised on how amazingly he worked today! He responded so well to everything I asked him and had a perfect board and wonderfully slow walk and cute little largo. I can only hope that he'll stay that way until Nationals are over and he'll get a nice break going into winter.  We went to go walk around outside a little bit by ourselves, but he seems like he doesn't have a lot of confidence to go very far from the barn by himself, as whenever he reached a certain distance from it (about 30 feet), he'd spin around and start heading back, not even in a hurried way, just kind of saying "Nope, not going any further". We'll have to work on that.

The bit my mom tried to use on Nina didn't work out too well, so we're going to try a different one tomorrow. We're trying to get her head to come down more, and with our last show before Nationals coming up in two weeks, we don't have that much time to work with!

After all of this, we were all sweaty and icky and still had to go back by John for dinner and the fireworks show he puts on every year, so we took Paco (who was also going back), and ran to Wal-Mart. I'm not sure what happened, but I do know that I went in with breeches and tall boots and came out with a pair of shorts and child sized flip flops and headed to a lovely fireworks show and dinner of cake (the real food was all eaten by the time we got there...830pm!). In all, it was a nice first day back =]


Sunday

So since Harry was so wonderful yesterday, especially after a two week break, I REALLY expected him to be horrible today. Wrong! I think that a break was really all he needed, he might've been starting to get burned out, because he worked beautifully today too! I even got him to go all around the property (except for by the pond. It might suck him in, you know) by himself! To say that I'm proud is a huge understatement. I hope he keeps it up for Nationals! I might even put him in Pleasure classes for fun at the State Fair just to see if we'll get some blue ribbons if he keeps up this wonderful attitude!

Nina's bit adventures didn't go so well today either, but we've seemed to have settled on a simple Mylar snaffle and a tie-down. With only another weekend's practice until the State Fair, I would start focusing more on working on dropping her head for Nationals instead of short fixes. We've done everything we could think of, it's just been an ongoing problem since she's been broke to ride. If you have any head-setting/dropping suggestions, please tell me!

Brie's leg was a little swollen today, but my brother warmed her up while I rode Harry and she was walking fine by the time I got to her. We all went for a nice walk around the property and she seemed to enjoy it a lot. We even ventured out onto the little side street next to the property, much to my dismay. I was freaking out getting there, but had to pull it together and act like I wasn't scared that way Brie wouldn't flip over on the asphalt and run away. There's nothing to really be scared of, not very many cars drive there, but all I could see was that one scene from The Horse Whisperer.

Thursday we're going out to meet the farrier again for shoeing. Hopefully the tranquilizer will work on Nina this time!