My mom and I had kind of a nice ride today. The weather has cleared up and it's sunny and nice again so the arenas have pretty much dried up. She got to the barn today while I was outside in my paddock having a little nap.
I love to nap. Lots of times I lie down to nap in my stall but I also like to nap outside in the sunshine and when I do that, I do it standing up. Horses can, you know. Sparky told me that it's an evolutionary thing that helps keep us safe from predators. Well, I don't really know what evolutionary means and I'm not sure about predators either but Sparky explained that being able to sleep standing up lets horses run away quickly if a Mountain Lion or something tries to eat it.
I asked him what a Mountain Lion was and he just looked really serious and told me I didn't want to know. So I guess they're pretty scary. They'd have to be if they eat horses. I can't imagine anything being big and scary enough to eat me.
Usually after my breakfast, I take a nice nap in my stall. I lie down in my shavings and curl right up and sleep soundly. When Sparky was next door to me, he did what he called standing guard when I did that. He says that's what the pasture horses do. When one or two of them lie down to take a nap, the rest of them stand guard and keep an eye out for danger. It was nice of Sparky to stand guard for me and I would have been glad to do it for him if I'd know what I was doing. I don't really know what's dangerous and what's not though. Sparky says I'd get eaten in five minutes if I lived in a pasture because I'm not afraid of anything and I just want to sniff things and explore them instead of running away from them. He sometimes laid down to take a nap in his stall but he always asked Raz to stand guard instead of me.
Anyway, today I was outside napping when my mom got here and I woke right up and was waiting at my stall door when she got to it. She pulled me right out and got my brush box so I figured we were going to do something fun. She groomed me really well and then put my Wintec saddle on me and we went out into the Flat Arena to ride.
There were a couple of other people riding horses out there so we just used the upper part of it while they worked at the other end. I was pretty distracted at first. I love watching other horses working and I generally want to go visit them and sniff noses and stuff even though I know I'm not supposed to when I'm working. I just like to make new friends and I didn't know either one of those horses though I'd seen them around. There was a man and a woman riding and the man just sat on his horse in the middle of the arena and told the woman what to do as she rode around him. So I guess he was giving her a Lesson.
It was pretty fun watching because the horse she was riding knew how to do some pretty neat things. She'd make him canter and he'd canter in a nice circle around the man and the other horse and then she'd just sit back a little and he'd stop dead. If she leaned back a little more once he was stopped, he'd back right up. Not like me, either. I know how to back up but I do it kind of slowly, one step at a time. This horse backed up just as fast as any horse does walking forward. It was fun to watch and I kind of wished I knew how to do that.
After a while though, I stopped watching because my mom was asking me to do things that I had to think about. She asked me to do some square corners for one thing, and then she was asking me to bend around the circle a little more than I have been. She was being really light on my mouth but very clear; she'd gently pull her inside rein back toward her middle while still keeping a hold on the outside rein so I didn't just bend my head around. I had to bend my whole body and she was using her legs to help me do it. The leg on the inside sort of helped me figure out where to bend and her outside leg pushed on me further back so my butt didn't pop outwards.
It doesn't seem like much but it's hard work to make good circles. At first, they were pretty crazy but we got so we were making them nice and round and that was kind of nice. Then my mom started asking me to do Shoulder In along the straight sides and we did that for a while too.
Finally, she asked me to trot. I gave kind of a big bounce and broke into a trot for several paces then kind of lurched to a halt. I'm out of practice and I get going too fast and when she tries to steady me, I lose my concentration and walk instead. It's easier when we have the whole arena to use. I need the space to get settled and relaxed. We tried a couple of more times but I was mostly bouncing. Then some more people came into the arena so she took me out and we headed down the road to do a Poop Loop.
I was excited. We haven't done loops for a while and with the cool weather and stuff, I just get bouncy. My mom just sat quietly in the saddle which helped settle me but I still kept getting a little goofy. I'd start jigging and bouncing and she'd sit deep and talk to me, telling me to relax and calm down. So I'd settle down again until the next time.
When we got to the turn by the Rolling Arena, I got pretty tense. I always seem to get excited there. I just want to run up the hill and buck and play even though I know I'm not supposed to. My mom made me walk nicely past the Little Rolling Arena where the Vaulting Horses were cantering around with all the little kids jumping on their backs but then she turned me around and rode me back toward our barn instead of up the hill.
I was a little confused by that but I soon settled down to a good, fast walk. My mom doesn't mind when I walk fast, it's just the bouncing that she doesn't approve of. We walked back past our barn and then started up the hill by the pasture and that's where I got excited again. I just like to run up hills. I can't help it. But as soon as I started getting silly, she turned me around and made me walk nicely down to the tack boxes. Then we turned and approached the hill again.
This time I didn't bounce so much but I was still excited and I couldn't help trying to trot up. My mom sat deep and tried to steady me without tightening up on the reins and I was pretty good until we got about halfway up. I was going sort of sideways and jigging a bit but then I got a little mad and impatient and started trying to trot again so we finished up by trotting/jigging sideways the rest of the way.
My mom got me back into a walk then but I was pretty hot and excited so she got off. I feel bad sometimes but I just can't help myself. And my mom tries to work with me. She tries not to make the reins tight for instance because that just makes me more anxious. Sometimes just being able to go forward and feeling my mom's deep seat will settle me but sometimes I just get so excited that I can't even focus on that. At that point, I don't blame her for getting off because she can get my attention better from the ground.
That's how it was today. At first I was still anxious and bouncy and wanted to rush and trot and stuff but she just stood still and let me move around her while she talked to me and eventually her voice got through to me and I stopped. She had me drop my head and she let me sniff the ground and when I'd relaxed a little bit, she led me on. We walked the rest of the Poop Loop like that and every time I got over-excited, she helped me settle down again before we moved on. It was actually pretty nice. We saw Indian and his mom in the Gremlin Arena and stopped to visit with them. And we passed some other people with their horses. It was a good walk and by the time we got back to the barn, I was a lot more relaxed. My mom says we'll do more of that because it's Good for me.
My dinner hay was waiting for me when we got to my stall so I got to eat that while my mom cleaned my stall. Then she put me to bed and gave me my bucket dinner. It was a nice day.
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