Musical Ponies

Today I am finally starting to feel better, although I'll be the first to admit that the dusty arena and cold air did not do my lungs any good! I didn't go to my lesson last night, which turned out to be a good thing because I slept for most of the evening anyway. Since being at the barn today, my cough has been pretty constant which is unfortunate, but I'm hoping it will wear down.

Today was a pretty great day other than my own sickness. I got nothing of value accomplished with Walker, especially since I was still pretty physically exhausted BUT I did get to ride two other horses today! Yay for pony swapping!

The first horse, Starr, is D's horse and she is also Walker's girlfriend. What a beautiful animal! She's so well behaved and puts her head into a perfect frame without ever being asked. Yeah. Talk about a dream. Her gaits are VERY different from Walker's although their training is so similar. Her jog is much slower than Walker's, and it should be slow since they're Western Pleasure horses. But she has a lot of bounce in each step whereas Walker is more floaty. Same with her canter. It was a lot of fun. D was particularly taken aback by how far Walker stretches out his neck. I can't say I blame her. Its like riding a headless horse the first few times you do it! I noticed after riding these other horses that Walker actually does have a very long neck.

The second horse I rode was Tabu. He's more of an English horse so although he was pretty lazy, once he got going, he was pretty forward (at least compared to my boy!). J, who owns Tabu, is in middle school and apparently she couldn't come to her lesson tonight, so her father came to the barn to exercise Tabu for her. Once he saw D and I riding, he just asked if one of us would hop on instead so I offered. But before all this, he decided to hop on. Let me just say that this man has never ridden a horse before, and he was visibly terrified! It was hilarious. He couldn't get him to turn, back up, or anything. When I got on him, I thought he was one of those horses that wouldn't back up so when the little bugger wouldn't listen to me, I asked him to back up pretty assertively. Umm. Turns out he backs up just find because the poor horse just about tripped over himself to back up fast enough for me! Tabu is only about 5 years old, and although he's pretty complacent compared to other 5 year olds at our barn, he has picked up a couple bad habits from having an eleven year old ride him.  One of these bad habits is bucking, and he likes to throw a few kicks when J asks him to canter, mostly because she doesn't really discipline him on it.  He tried that with me once, and I'm pretty sure he regrets it. I mean really. I'm used to Walker afterall. It takes more than a little kick to the side to scare me!

All in all it was a fun afternoon, despite being there longer than my lungs cared for!  It's nice when other people trust you enough to let you ride their horses, and it was also pretty nice when Tabu misbehaved and then had that "oh oh, big mistake" moment.  It's always pretty great when you realize that other horses respect you too.  You get so used to your own horse that you forget what other horses are like.

Anyway, I have a bunch of running around to do tomorrow morning and early afternoon, but I should make it to the barn at some point.  Hopefully I'll be feeling even better and I will get to set up a few crossrails (or one crossrail... or a pole...).

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.  Hopefully you all got the lovin' you deserve!