Lazy

I ended up having a bad sleep last night, so instead of getting up, working on my papers, and going to the barn, I decided to go to the barn first thing to help invigorate me for the tedious task ahead.  I was pretty cold when I left the house, but riding in the indoor arena warmed me up pretty fast.  Apparently they finally moved to the indoor arena last night since the outdoor arena is officially a frozen mess.  I don't know if it's going to stay like that since apparently the temperature is going back up again next week, but I wish we would just stay inside so that I can stop switching back and forth and start preparing myself for the long winter ahead.

Speaking of the long winter ahead, I feel pretty bad for Walker's feet.  His front feet are chipping pretty bad, but I checked with my trainer today and she said that it's not uncommon at this time of year since we don't have snow yet.  Once the snow comes, all should be well.

Today Walker and I mostly worked on some basics: walk/trot/canter in my English saddle, and I did a little bit of: trot a circle, canter a circle, switch directions, repeat.  I set up a pole in the arena and went over that a couple of times, and then I put up a crossrail to trot over.  He was feeling pretty lazy at first, and he was trying to slow down to a walk over it.  I made him pick up the pace, of course, but the whole ride pretty much exhausted me!  He's so lazy that it takes SO much effort to keep him going either at the trot (i.e. not a jog) or a canter/lope.  I usually end up puffing pretty bad after just a couple circles of the lope, and I feel like I've run a marathon.  It's times like these that I wish he was a little more forward.  Of course, a lot of that is his training and the fact that the indoor arena is so much smaller.  He actually picks up a nice pace for me considering his tendencies, but I feel like I'm going to pop a lung just getting him to lope more than one circle in a row.  Perhaps that's more a sign that I'm out of shape...  Of course, I've never been so in shape since riding Walker.  Horses really do that to you and lazy ones especially!

On a final note, I joined Instragam today and I decided to play around with some photos of the pony.  Still getting used to all the buttons, but hopefully it will encourage me to take more pictures at the barn!

Shadows, kisses and love :)