Lessons Learned?

Struck out this morning all by myself. It was kind of nice, just listening to my country music, singing away, nobody there to tell me I couldn't sing. The weather had calmed down a bit this morning, not the 33 C weather it had been earlier this week, thank God, but it was still really nice outside.

I wasn't really sure what Pepper would be like this week, she was super crabby last week. Her head was way up in the air and she wasn't the least bit interested in me at all, I must say my feelings were a teeny bit hurt. Last week I got to see Harvey riding a 3 year old mare, and man was she nice. So I was slightly impressed when I walked up to her stall this morning and her ears pricked forward and she moved toward me. I thought to myself, "this is my horse, my friendly loving little mare that I have been missing." I guess she plays with her water bowl a bit and makes it run over, little trouble maker. I don't mind a bit, so long as she is happy.

Last week I was surprised to see that she was still rather fat, I thought that she would be slim and trim after not seeing her for 2 1/2 weeks but apparently when you are that fat it takes a while to get in shape. Pleasantly surprised was I too actually see a change in her condition this week from last. She actually looked like she had gotten taller. Harvey advised me it was an optical illusion as her tummy no longer sticks out past her hips, ahem, she appears taller. [Maybe it would work for me too, no, wait, I don't need to be taller. Right.]

So we calmly walked out to the ring, she is only being ridden outside so that she won't freak out when she comes home and has to be ridden outside. He lunged her around the ring only a few times and then he hopped, literally, on to her. She has been quite resistant to holding her head in position, we also had that problem with her at home. Apparently she is quite clumsy as a result of trying to lope with her head up. She needs reminders to bring her head into collection. She is actually trotting with energy, backing up reasonably well and SURPRISE she can lope! I don't know if she was hiding it from me or if she actually didn't know she could do it but she can. She mostly picks up the right lead and is starting to respond to neck reining. She does still resist but so long as you perservere and wait for her to figure it out, she does.

I was happy with this trip even though it was a quick one, I got too see some major improvements in my mare. I also got to give her a lovely warm bath and lots of kisses and hugs when no one was looking. She now walks on a lead better than she did, apparently that was a lesson in itself, a hard lesson. Note to self- Do not let your horse walk too close, other people don't like it. There are so many things that need to be fixed when you spoil your horse. Life lessons I guess.