Day 213

Saturday

I didn't really have a specific goal for today. My mom wanted to ride Harry because he's less bouncy than Brie, and her back hurts, so she rode him. I knew that I wanted to try switching Brie's bit. So I switched it from her baby bit to something else in our bit box that didn't look too severe, but didn't look super ignorable...I should've taken a picture. But anyways, it didn't really work any differently than her baby bit, so sometime when she's not being ridden the same time as Harry, I want to try the bit that we just switched him into on her and see if it makes a difference, that way I know if we should buy another identical one or not.

It took me 30 minutes to mount today.
I could've just hopped around on one leg, one leg in the stirrup, as usual while Brie moves around and swing up onto her. But I figured that since my mom isn't feeling too well lately (and the fact that Brie is supposed to STAND STILL while I mount), that I wasn't going to put up with it today.

We lined up with the mounting block, but I figured I didn't want to get too ahead of myself today, so I made enough space between the block and myself to mount from the ground, but just close enough that she would get the idea that mounting block = standing still. At first, every little step that she took away from the block, I would walk back around and line up again. When that wasn't working, I made her longe, and then  come back to line up with the block. We spent most of our morning doing this. I only wanted to accomplish this goal once I started out with it, and it may have taken quite a long time to do it, but when she finally stood still as I put my leg in the stirrup, stood mid-air, and then finally swung my leg over onto her to sit, it was all worth it.

After that, I found out that the bit wasn't working as well as I thought it might. But we walked and corto'd and then worked on not bolting once we get outside. All in all, it was a successful day with Brie.

Once we came back in, my mom asked if I wanted to ride Harry. He is just amazing. I couldn't be more proud of him, and I only hope that he keeps it up for the shows! Even Nick (who laughed at me last week) had to stop and watch as I passed over the board with Harry, we were THAT good =]

I'm really quite annoyed with Gary and Paco though...Gary bought some new horses from Florida, and two of them are with foal, so they're going to be taking up the only two grassy pastures that he has until they foal, so Paco said that no one is going out anymore. The only other paddocks that are there are these little mud ones that aren't as nice as the grass ones...Gary better be putting in other pastures for the rest of the horses, because he never cared about putting any of his previous pregnant mares outside, and now he suddenly does, so no one else gets to go out and have grass. Once again, it's things like this that remind me why I need to be successful enough in life to have my own property.

To end on a nicer note, here are some pictures I took while they were playing in the pastures they won't get to be in anymore. Poor Harry, Nina kicked him square in the chest while they were outside!!