I turned seven years old in March! It was kind of a big deal. My mom made a fuss over me and Sparky's Mom surprised me with a birthday cake! It had a little stick on top of it pointing straight up and there was a hot thing on the end of it. I poked my nose out to sniff it and the hot thing just disappeared. Mom and Sparky's Mom laughed and told me I was a Good Girl because I Blew Out The Candle. I don't really know what any of that means but the important thing was I got to eat some cake. It was okay but I just had a little bit before I went back to my hay. Sparky seemed to like it better than I did. He ate almost a whole piece. Dooley came by and tried some too. My mom said it was Carrot Cake but it didn't really taste like carrot to me.
My birthday was on March 15th. My mom told me it was the Ides of March and then she laughed. I don't know why. I guess that means something but all it meant to me was that it was my birthday and that I was a Big Girl because I was seven. And the funny thing is, I feel like a Big Girl. I don't get so fussy and cranky like I did when I was little, and I pay attention to my mom almost all the time now and try to do what she tells me to.
She's been telling me to do a lot of stuff. We've been working really hard ever since the cold weather ended and she seems pretty happy with me. I feel good too. I've learned a lot of stuff and I feel like a real riding horse now instead of feeling kind of awkward and unsure like I used to.
My mom and I have a routine we follow almost every day. She comes to the barn in the early afternoon, after I've had my breakfast and my after-breakfast nap most of the time. One day she came while I was still sleeping. I was nice and comfy and I didn't want to get up so I just stayed all curled up in my stall and she came in and talked quietly to me and petted me and hugged me while I dozed. It was so nice. I never used to be able to keep still like that when there was someone around, even if it wasn't my own mom. I'd get excited by any activity in the barn and I'd have to get up and investigate it. But now I just nap right through everything. If it's not my mom there, I don't even notice. And even when it was my mom that day, I kept napping for a while. She didn't mind. In fact, she seemed to like cuddling with me like that. I know I liked it.
But usually she comes after I'm all done with my nap. By then, I'm out in my paddock, watching whatever is going on in the Dressage Arena. I used to call it the Flat Arena, if you remember, but now I know what Dressage is and that arena is made special for it. Dressage is what me and my mom do. It means you have to do exactly what your mom tells you to at the exact spot she tells you to do it. There are markers in a Dressage Arena. They're not Cones like we use in the Round Pen, but they do the same sort of thing. They show you the spots where you have to do certain things. It's not the same thing all the time which makes it tricky. That's why you have to pay close attention to your mom because she'll let you know what it is you have to do that particular time. Sometimes you might have to start trotting, or maybe you have to stop and back up. Sometimes you have to do something really hard like a Shoulder In or a Leg Yield.
I like doing Dressage. It's like a game. You have to learn how to do the tricks and you have to learn the rules. I'm good at games though and I like to learn rules. Rules make games more fun. And my mom is really patient with me when I'm learning all these new tricks. She tries really hard to be clear about what she wants me to do.
I've gotten so I can do a Shoulder In at the trot. It's really fun. I do it especially well going to the Left but I can do it to the Right too sometimes. On certain days, I have trouble but my mom asked me to do it the other day by just having me do it towards the rail instead of toward the middle of the Arena and that was easier. Sometimes I sort of drift across it diagonally. I don't mean to but it's just not my best direction. Having the rail there helped. But when we go Left, I can move right into it. As soon as we go around the short turn and get ready to go down the long side, I get ready because I know she's going to ask me to do it. I get myself all flexed and ready to bend and as soon as she gives me the cue, I move right into it and float down the rail with my front part bent inside and my back legs going straight. That's how you do a Shoulder In. It's easy once you get the hang of it.
We do lots of trotting. In fact, most of the work we do is at a trot. I've gotten so I can trot a long time and I don't fuss about it anymore. Part of it is because I trust my saddle. My mom won't let my saddle pinch me and I know that now. If it does start to feel funny, all I have to do is tell her and she gets off and stops using it until my Saddle Fitter can come and fix it again. So I don't get fussy and scared about it. I like to trot now. My mom says I have three trots. I mostly do them when we're lunging because it's easier to do without a rider. I have a slow trot that my mom says isn't really any kind of Dressage trot but would be a nice trail trot. Then I have what she calls a Working Trot which is faster and then I have a Lengthened Trot which means I'm trotting faster and reaching more with my legs. We're working on doing those different trots with a saddle. I can do the slow one and the Working Trot pretty well. Sometimes when we do a Change of Rein (that's when you go all the way across the Arena diagonally at a trot), I can Lengthen pretty well but we need to work on that.
We usually work on all that stuff for a while and then we go on a Poop Loop or two. I was kind of fussy about them at first because I hadn't done them in a while. I'd get excited. But now I like it and my mom says I'm getting lots of good muscle from going up and down the hills. I do notice that it's a lot easier now. At first I got pretty tired and it was hard to stay straight, especially when I was going downhill. I felt like I was going to fall on my face. Now I just clop right down.
Lately we've been going in the Main Arena too. That's the one I used to call the Rolling Arena. I was a baby then. We don't really work in there. We just go in to get used to it because we haven't ridden in there for a long time. It's still kind of exciting for me but I try to behave. I sometimes get a little tense but I try really hard not to bounce. I'm seven now and seven-year-olds shouldn't be so bouncy.
Today was exciting because they were having a Vaulting Show. They put up big pieces of cloth on tall sticks - they flapped around a lot in the breeze - and they had lots of horses and kids jumping on and off of them. There were loud noises like the kind that my mom sometimes has coming out of that box thing she talks to sometimes and the horses were going around in time to the noises while the kids jumped around on them. Then all of a sudden, all the people who were there (and there were lots of people) started yelling and making loud noises by bashing their hands together. My mom walked me down there with Sparky and his mom and we met Dooley there. His mom was riding him and they were watching so we watched too. The first time the people made all that racket, I startled but I was really Good and didn't rear or bolt or step on my mom or anything. The next time I just wiggled a little bit but I was pretty Good. Once we started walking again, I was a little nervous having all that noise behind me but Dooley and Spark let me know it was okay and my mom talked quietly to me and told me to be good so I was.
It's pretty busy work being a Big Girl but I like it. My mom says if I work hard maybe I can be a really good Dressage Horse like Kia. I'd like that. I think she'd be proud of me. I know my mom is.
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