Day 221

Happy Mother's Day! My mom got the great present of being able to come out to the barn today. It was nice having someone to watch and correct my riding from the ground.

Everyone is back to being okay. There weren't any after effects of the whole commotion with the vet yesterday, so that was insanely relieving. When we got there, we let them all out to play in the pastures. They ate for a little bit and then we chased them around and played. Harry is so cute to play with. He'd play when I'd chase him and then knew exactly when I wanted him to come back to come inside. His hair was a mess today, so that took forever for me to brush through it all. He was very calm when I went to longe him. I love this calm Harry. It's great being able to longe without him fishtailing or backing up or charging at me or anything. I love it!

We did a lot of circle work today and flexing, since he didn't ride yesterday. I mostly worked on trying to collect his corto better and my mom was helping me with that, telling me that I keep my hands a little too low and too close together on his neck to support him, so I had to change that. After his corto was where I wanted it to be, we worked on the largo. It was pace-y again, but we kept working at it. I had to keep checking him and flexing him with the outside rein. We eventually found out perfect speed and remained in gait, so I was happy with that.

Since he was such a good and patient boy, we wandered around outside by ourselves, since my brother and Nina were already done. I was so proud of Harry! He's scared of walking close to the pond that's in the back of Gary's place, but today we walked around it on our own! Not very close, but still, it's progress! He was such a doll outside and was absolutely calm. He likes to run up the little hill in back too =]

Afterwards, I showered him off and let him out in the paddocks with Nina and Brie, where Brie stayed the entire day today. I also found out that a horse will not see a carrot if you throw it at them and won't sniff it out like a dog and eat it from the ground. It has to be literally in front of their noses.