First Ride in Months
I haven’t ridden a horse in 3 months…there I said it. Christmas happened, then the EVEN colder weather set in, and with my mom and sister injured – I have no one to ride with. And honestly, I just didn’t feel like riding. So after 3 months I finally decided to saddle back up – even though there is still snow on the ground.
I thought that with the warm (when I say warm I mean 40 Degrees) would soften the snow enough to ride – I was wrong. So I ended up riding up and down our small private road. I decided to ride Blitz first, because he’s the most laid back….sometimes. He actually hadn’t been ridden since my mom had her accident on him. So when I took him back to the scene of the crime I could tell he had some naughty thoughts in his head. But, he didn’t try anything and I made sure to click and reward him when he did as asked.
I then got Boomerang out of the pasture and attempted to pony him off of Blitz. Boomer can be a bit mouthy and likes to bite the saddle and leadrope – so ponying him was good practice for him to “keep his hands to himself”. I was actually kind of surprised at how well he did – I’m hoping with more practice I can take them out by myself. My mom tagged along on foot to make sure none of the ponies acted up.
When I got back from my short ride I worked with Boomer a little bit on ground manners. Asking him to move away from my hand pressure on his chest and neck. He’s really picked it up quickly and I put it into effect when I asked him to move away from the gate so that I could get Minnow out.
Minnow got to work on his rear after a few weeks off. And I can say he was more then enthusiastic – he really got pretty high! My little rogue pony!~
Hopefully I can keep up with the riding – it just better get warm soon!
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I’ve fallen victim to not riding in the winter. 🙂 Glad you’re back in the saddle and everyone did so well. 🙂
Oh gosh I know just how that feels! When we moved our TB to a private backyard barn nearer to our house (couldn’t put up with the hour commute to our old barn anymore) we knew it was going to be a challenge with no indoor. But I wasn’t exactly pleased to discover that not only could ice and packed snow kill my riding opportunities, once we got to late December the ground would freeze and become like concrete. With all the ridges in the footing there was no way to ride without him tripping and sending us both into a nosedive. So reluctantly my mom, my sister and I had to sigh and put up with the fact that from Christmas to mid/late March everyone would be forced to take a “winter break”.