Days 249 & 250

Saturday

I was all excited to try riding Brie without a bit this morning and then we only realized as we were 10 minutes away (and 50 minutes away from home) that we forgot our saddlepads and girths at home...so we couldn't ride. We let them all out to play, stayed a while, brushed them off, and then headed home, disappointed.


Sunday

We remembered everything today! And I decided that, since John had asked about a picture on Taco previously, I would bring my show clothes today so that we could have a little Taco photo shoot. Here are a couple of my favorites.

After our photo shoot, I got on Harry. I was kind of disappointed today with him, not because he was bad, but because I couldn't get him to focus on me. The construction workers were burning garbage outside the barn from the new round pen, so he was jittery because of the smell of smoke. Then he started that awkward sidepassing away from one of the walls again that he hasn't done in a while. And then I just felt like he wasn't responding well to the bit. We switched back to his second bit, where he had been riding with his first bit for a while. I think I might change back to that, because he was not even stopping when I asked him to, which is definitely not good. I was having to use a heavy hand, and I hate doing that, and I know he doesn't appreciate it, so the other bit would be better for him.

Meanwhile, my mom rode Brie without a bit and Brie was being absolutely crazy. She was sticking her nose out like a racehorse and nothing made her set her head back! So I think that adventure is done. She clearly needs a bit.

We got those Easy Boots for her in the mail this past week, so we put them on her to hope that it would absorb some of the impact from kicking the wall, since she's started that up again. Paco says that she kicks a lot in the middle of the afternoon, between meals. My suggestion was to cut up her daily rations into three and give her a lunch, but that's apparently unheard of, so that's not going to happen. Instead, we moved her to the end stall where she has a big view of outside towards the woods. She had a window in her old stall, but it's tiny and now she can fully stick her head out and see a lot of the outdoors. But now she can't see Nina or Harry because we had to scoot them down one stall each so Harry wouldn't be harassed by the other mares, so I hope that's not stressing her out too much.