Today Mom came out and gave me my hay snack as usual and started cleaning my stall. That's me eating my hay snack in the picture. I love my hay snack. I really look forward to it. I get my grass hay in the morning and I get my alfalfa later in the day but that hay snack puts something in my tummy right when I need it. Plus I get to be outside my stall to eat it and that's fun because people going by pet me and say hello to me, and I get to watch the other horses that are being ridden go by. It's just a nice routine.
Mom cleaned out my stall and started getting stuff ready for us to ride. By then I'd finished my hay snack and was just whuffling around on the ground for any stray bits I'd missed. Mom went to the wash rack to get some water in a bucket and while she was gone, I discovered that I could reach the flappy colored cloth things that have been hanging on Mickey's stall. I'd noticed them before but I could never reach them to sniff. Today though, his mom was in his stall cleaning and the door was slid open over close to me.
I poked my nose out and sniffed those cloth things all over but I couldn't figure out what they were. They were all hanging in a row and they were pretty colors, mostly red and blue. Lots of blue. They had a sort of crinkled round part on top and long dangly parts below. You can just see them dangling behind me in the picture.
Well, I couldn't help but wonder what they might taste like so I reached out and picked one up with my mouth. I had to kind of tug on it to get it off and it made sort of a ripping sound when it did. It didn't really taste like anything though so I dropped it and grabbed another. That one was no better and I was just grabbing the third one when my mom came around the corner and saw me with it dangling out of my mouth. She yelled, "BELLA!" and I dropped it really quick and tried to pretend I hadn't been anywhere near them but the dratted things were all over the ground and I guess it was pretty obvious that I'd done it.
She came over and picked them up and told Mickey's mom that I'd tried to eat his ribbons. I felt ashamed of myself. Sometimes I do things and don't even know why I did them. I just don't think things through. They just looked so interesting and colorful that I couldn't help it. Mickey's mom wasn't mad at me. She laughed and petted me and told me it was okay and I felt better. I like Mickey's mom - she always says hi to me and pets me. My mom seemed relieved that she wasn't mad but she still tied me up short so I couldn't get in any more trouble.
Then she saddled me up and we went out to ride in the Flat Arena. It was kind of hot and I was feeling a little lazy so I gave her kind of a hard time about trotting again. She just kept pushing at me though and finally I did and it wasn't so bad. We did some trot circles and Mom really worked with me to remind me how to do them and what it means when she gives me leg cues. Horses have to learn to understand the signals their riders give them and it can be confusing. People use their legs and the way they sit as well as the reins and things like sticks to tell us what to do. Lots of times, my mom has to use my reins a lot because I'm not sure what she's telling me with her legs so today she was really working them so I'd get it.
When you go in a circle, for instance, your mom pushes you forward with her legs but she's also making you bend so the circle is nice and smooth and not all jerky like a square. She does that by using the reins - my mom keeps a strong outside rein so I stay on the circle and don't just flop into it, while touching my mouth with the inside rein to tell me to curve that way - and by using her legs. When her inside leg is pressing against my girth, it means I bend away from it and when her outside leg is kind of firm behind my girth it means that I can't just pop my butt out of the circle. So as you can tell, there's a lot going on and a horse has to be paying attention to all of it.
I used to know a lot of this stuff but when my feet were bothering me, I didn't work for a long time and I kind of forgot. I'm really starting to remember now and it's kind of fun because she'll ask me to do something and I'll be a little confused but then she tries to make the cues very clear and then I think, "Oh, yeah, I remember this!" That feels good. It also really helps that my back doesn't hurt. The Carrot Doctor made me feel a lot better and it's so much easier to bend now. Since I'm not thinking about pain and wondering when it's going to hurt, I can pay attention to my mom better.
After doing circles for a while, Mom brought me down to a walk and we worked on turns. She rode me a short way down the long side of the arena, then she'd ask me to turn and go straight across to a point on the other side. When we got there, she'd ask me to turn in the other direction and we did that all up and down the arena. It was fun. Just before we'd reach the spot where I needed to turn, she'd settle into the saddle a bit and just touch my mouth with the reins. That way, I knew she was going to ask me for something and I was ready for her signal to turn. I thought that was pretty smart because it's a lot harder to react if all of a sudden your person is asking you to do something and you're not ready.
I got pretty good at it and by the time we finished, Mom hardly had to use the reins at all. I was recognizing her leg cues and the way she was sitting and knew what she wanted me to do. I liked it because it's a lot nicer on your mouth when it's not getting pulled so much. Mom is gentle with my bit but even so, if she has to use it a lot to turn me I'm going to feel it.
When we finished up, she let me walk around a bit on a really loose rein like she always does. That's always nice. It gives me a chance to relax and cool off and we just walk around like that. I keep my head really low because it feels good to stretch my neck and my back and also because I just naturally like to have my head down. But today we did something different and it was kind of fun.
We were just walking slowly along and Mom lightly laid the reins against one side of my neck and used her legs and seat to tell me to turn. Well, we'd just been doing that so I knew what she wanted. I obediently started to turn and she continued to cue me and to keep that rein on my neck so I kept turning. Because I was turning so much, I wasn't really moving forward so much as going in kind of a circle with my back legs pretty much in one place and my front legs doing all the turning. It was kind of like when we do pivots when Mom is on the ground only instead of going around with my back legs, I was going around with the front ones.
I started slowing down when we had gone about halfway around in a circle so Mom just touched my mouth and reminded me that she was still asking for a turn so I kept going and when she finally let off the pressure, we'd gone all the way around and I was facing the exact same direction I'd started in! Mom seemed to really like that and she petted me a lot and told me I was a Good Girl. Then she laid the rein on the other side of my neck and gave me the leg cues to go the other way so I did. She was really happy with me for that. I don't know why. It was easy. But I do like being called a Good Girl.
That was the end of our ride. She got off and gave me nice face kisses and pets and then I got to go to my stall and have my alfalfa and my bucket dinner. My alfalfa was already waiting for me. I used to get pretty upset when Mom rode me at dinner time but I'm five now and I know I'll get it eventually and no one will eat it in the meantime. That's the sort of thing you learn when you're five.
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