With the holidays comes time off from work! I started my Thanksgiving with the second love of my life...Mr. G. We had a wonderful 30 minute ride in the arena just working on relaxation and walk gait transitions and walk to canter. We then rode up at the track another 30 minutes basically doing the same thing. It still amazes me how a little thing like setting the tone at the mounting block has changed our rides, but they just keep getting better. I was able to get back there again on Friday but since it was raining we spent the 35 minutes indoors. I'm just loving this bit and the rope reins. And, I'm also loving riding in my ATH saddle on a regular basis.
Today I had the arena reserved for 12:30 and decided rather than ride we'd work on ground driving. I can't tell you when the last time we did this, maybe last winter sometime(?) Well, he was a real champ and by the third request for halt he was stopping dead square. I'm trying to keep my verbal cues to a minimum, but find that sometimes they're needed. He was such a good boy as we worked on serpentines, figure eights, and tear drops. He looked and felt wonderful in my hands. He did so well, I drove him out the arena doors and took him for a walk down the drive to the track. Sounds like no big deal right? Welllll , the winds were howling and gusting up to 50 mph. Crazy me, lol. He did really well until we came around the backside of the track and wind caught the soft sided horse shelter and it started flapping like crazy. BUT, the only reaction was he turned into a giraffe and side stepped three steps and halted on my request. I walked him forward about 20 steps asked for a nice halt and decided to end it on a good note. All I needed was for that shelter to take flight and have G lose it. It was almost better than the two days previous rides put together. It just felt soooo good.
Tomorrow is supposed to be a pretty nice day, but I know the trails are muddy (more rain this week of course) and I'm thinking he deserves a day to just be a horse! Maybe I'll visit at the end of the day and just give him a treat for being my boy.
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