"For My Horse"

So Walker ended up getting three days off by accident.  I rode him Monday, then had some dog issues to deal with on Tuesday.  On Wednesday I had my lesson.  I was going to ride him after I rode Drifter, but I was exhausted.  I intend to do that in the future though.  Unfortunately, I can't ride Thursdays anymore and didn't know until a few hours before I got ready to go.  My barn owner rents out his indoor arena to the dog agility people on Thursday nights for the Winter so that they have somewhere to practice.  Sigh.  Oh well.

I rode Friday night and it was a disaster.  Well, that's not entirely true.  It wasn't much worse than our normal frustrating rides, only I had memories of my fantastic ride on Drifter which made the frustration sting all the more.  

For my whores horse

Then I decided to treat Walker for thrush because he's been getting a bit lately.  The new stuff I bought is blue, and I ended up spilling it all over the barn floor.  So at 10 PM at night, I was like Cinderella trying to scrub the floor.  And that stuff stinks!  I got it all over my hands and couldn't get the smell off.

Today, I went back out to the barn with a better mindset and had a much more successful ride.  I broke my ride up into 5 minute chunks. I have a short attention span while riding, and so 5 minutes of working on one particular thing is perfect for me - 2.5 minutes in each direction and then on to a new activity.  My 35 minute ride looked like:

- 5 minute warm up at the walk

- 5 minute jog

- 5 minute changing directions (turn on the forehand) and transitions from walk to trot

- 5 minute trot at a nice pace (once his mind got working)

- 5 minute changing directions (turn on the forehand) and transitions from walk to canter

- 5 minute figure eights - trot and canter

- 5 minute cool down at the walk

I also forgot to mention that one of the Canadian tack shops got back to me about a few potential used saddles for Walker.  I'm just waiting on a couple pictures and then intend to order one this week.  Who knows if it will fit but I'm hopeful that it will do the trick.