*Behind on posting again, arg!
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"Y you do this to me?" -Annie |
Following our Not Good/ Good ride on Thursday, we hacked around the subdivision Friday. Annie was super - we had done some despooking stuff in the yard, which included dragging tarps and waving a plastic bag around on the end of a whip. She was not amused, but didn't offer to spook or make a fuss.
The hack out was wonderful - she was calm, quiet, and when she offered to spook at a few things, I pressed her on and towards the object. She got over herself pretty quickly, as if to say, "Oh right, that hockey net isn't scary."
I did find she was running a bit of a fever when we got back to the barn tho (she didn't want to eat grass in the front, which I found weird). Come to find, she was having a mild reaction to her vaccinations we had boostered since she had punctured herself. Poor mare was probably feeling a combination of under the weather and tired from the day before.
I gave her some bute and cold hosed her neck to help with the tiny bit of swelling. The vet who sent up the vaccines called me back later that day to assure me that it was "normal" of sorts, in some horses (to react).
She got Saturday off, although we did do some in-hand work. She has reverted back to staring down the driveway and flipping me the bird about walking down the driveway. She doesn't drag me, but she is obviously excited to go out and will just be impatient (fidgets if I halt her, etc). So we walked up and down the driveway a bunch, did some circling, etc. She was better after the work and I put her back, not wanting to do too much since she was still recovering from her wee reaction, haha.
Sunday we went for a hack with Nicole and AJ, intent on only doing an easy walk ride. We toodled around and ended up stripping the horse's tack and letting them run loose in the arena. Spud and AJ tore it up and we tentatively let Annie loose with them, as she hasn't shown any inclination to dislike AJ (since we ride together almost every weekend). However, Annie took major offence to AJ after rolling around and when she went over to investigate the geldings, she threw some kicks in AJ's direction. And then squatted, nickered, and went into fucking FLAMING heat.
I guess she is a rough lover?
We got the horses separated and luckily, AJ suffered nothing more than some hair missing. Gah, Annie. I apologized profusely to Nicole, offering to bring AJ carrots and apples. Nicole shrugged and said, "Well, now we know not to let her loose with him." I appreciated her kindness, and felt a bit stupid that we let Annie loose, but we assumed it would be OK. Lesson learned, I guess.
The horses were tacked back up, we re-mounted, and went for a little ride around the fairgrounds property. Annie was well behaved, although slightly enamored with AJ. I was happy that altho she was a gross, liquid spewing machine, she was listening to her rider despite having a hunk of horse-flesh with her, haha.
Boyfriend visited Sunday - Monday evening, so no pony time was to be had.
Tuesday, however, it was back to the proverbial grind and I headed out mid-morning to ride. I had been having aversions to riding in the ring lately, not because we've been having bad rides, but because I feel like I lack motivation to school and to do so competently on my own. Before getting burnt out with ring riding and making myself ride because I
have to vs I
want to, I decided that I'd limit the amount of schooling rides we had that week.
Regardless, we still had a good schooling session. Annie was a bit more "up" hacking out and even called out for friend's twice, which she hasn't done in a very long time. Being that we have hacked with friends 80% of the time lately (due to the bears), I think Annie got used to meeting up with another horse, haha. I figured it would be good for her to go out on her lonesome and she settled into a quiet, sedated walk well before we got to the ring.
In the ring, we ended up working mostly on trot-canter-trot transitions. The ride itself was very tough for Annie - learning to balance herself, hold connection, and also downshift back into trot was difficult for her. Usually, our canter-trot transitions look like we're just falling into a heap. Which, is part of the process I guess, haha. Still, I took the opportunity to work on them and Annie ended up getting frazzled when we started to work on the simple changes. The connection in the bridle was gone and I was now riding a confused llama.
Last year, had I done that many transitions to and from canter, Annie would have lost her proverbial mind. Not only that, but she was actually trying to figure out what I wanted. At one point, instead of coming back to a trot, she collected herself into the slowest, bundled little canter. I reached forward, patted her, and laughed.
We ended the ride after we got a few good canter-trot transitions and I made a mental note to make my simple changes longer in duration (eg. trotting longer before picking up canter). Trying to do them quicker seemed to confuse Annie a bit, especially changing the lead, haha.
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Something is missing here... |
Heading home from the ride, Annie quietly walked along. So quiet, that I ended up unbuckling her reins and rode her the remaining 10 minutes home with them draped around her neck. She listened well enough, although she did try and snatch a few mouthfuls of grass on the way home!