Day 277

Finally, getting the chance to write on the day that I ride.

Didn't go out last weekend. I was in a car accident =[ So I was told not to ride for a week or so. Thankfully,  I think I'm okay. Unfortunately, my car is not. For now it's back to hitching a ride with my parents back and forth to school.

I was beyond happy to finally see the horses after such a long time. They're all in different stalls now! The rows used to be:

                       Sadie      Nina         Harry        Dora
Entrance way
                       Brie                         Tobacco   Taco

Now it's:

                       Brie       Nina                           Sadie
Entrance way
                       ?            Tobacco     Harry       Taco

The Question Mark is a new horse. We have new boarders!
But first, let me go over the change. Apparently, unbeknownst to us, Sadie and Nina didn't get along. Sadie has issues getting along with people in the arena, but I didn't think that she wouldn't be friends with Nina. Everyone is friends with Nina. But sometime this past week they must have gone at it and Sadie actually managed to get her leg caught above the wall, between the solid wall of the stall divider and the first slot for boards. The stall dividers are half wall and then every other slot is filled in with a board so that the horses could see each other. So that's where Sadie got her leg caught and cut a huge gash in her leg down to the bone. The vet came out and did his thing and now she's by herself, hopefully on her way to a full recovery.

I wanted to work on Brie today. She was already in a good mood because we brought her a banana, but I decided that before I rode, I wanted to start implementing the program that my mom made up for Harry. I want Brie to get more collected that way I could bring her back to show if I ever find a spot for her in someone's trailer, since ours only holds 2 horses. So I took her out with the longe line and my carrot stick and she cantered away for quite some time. She would be going steady and then just snorted and speed up to a gallop and then slow back down. She had a beautiful trot going once she calmed down a bit. At that point, my mom took my longe spot so I moved, took her of the longe line and onto a shorter line and had her move out on that for a bit before I started working on her moving her back end away from me, so that she was more turning on her front end. This works to round her out and stretch her back and neck, which she hates doing, without me pulling her to flex while mounted. She always cheats when she does that by bringing her head really low, not directly to the sides, but during this exercise she either had to keep her head up for balance or didn't realize that she wasn't cheating, but it worked! We did that for a while, stretched out, and then I went back to tack her up.

I was so proud of her! I've been working on getting her used to the mounting block again for quite some time and today I just walked up to it, pulled it out and put it next to her and got on and she didn't move! It usually takes a couple of tries because she walks away from it or swings her butt away so that I can't get on. So I knew this ride was off to a good start.

It took a while for me to figure out my seat again with her, I don't know why I was having trouble with that today but I just couldn't get in the saddle and work. So while I was trying to figure myself out, Samantha started riding Tobacco....and then he started bucking, and she started screaming, and eventually she fell off...she's okay, thankfully, and that's really weird for Tobacco to do that, but she got back on and rode him, so good for her.

After that, I somehow managed to figure out what I was doing and set off working. My goal: looser rein, Brie not pulling out, and maintaining a steady gait without speeding up without me asking or cantering. Mission accomplished! I never understood what riders were talking about when they said they wanted the back end engaged, but I could feel Brie engage her back end. She set her head perfectly, pulled her butt underneath her and really worked from her core. I felt like I was floating! She had wonderful boards, better than usual! She was responsive, we worked on transitions, and my reins were lose. I only had to check her every now and then, but she never pulled out and never tried to speed up. It was absolutely amazing. I can't wait to ride her tomorrow and try to recreate today's ride.