Sunday evening I ground drove Daisy for the first time in at least a month and a half. I wasn't sure what to expect, but. . . she was excellent! She was completely responsive to my voice commands, which is interesting because I don't really use them while riding (at least not the forward commands; I do use woah). I really want to get a cart and hook her up, but I'm leery. . . I was hoping I could find a cart in the area that I could borrow just for the first time to see if she could even handle it, but I didn't have any luck. So if I do it, it would require driving an hour or so away to pick up a ~$500 cart, in the hopes that Daisy even takes to it. So at this point, I haven't done anything more than think about it.
Monday morning finally left time for me to ride Ladd. He was full of it, as seen when he came cantering up to me full speed in the pasture and almost plowed me over. He had canter on the brain the whole time we were in the arena; I was trying to ride my PC dressage test with him, but the trot circles were turning into fights to see who would win; me at keeping him at a trot, or him at winning a canter. He was lathered up and sweaty after a half hour, and I took him out on the trail. He was surprisingly well behaved. I admit I'm a little anxious about riding him outside because when we canter, I always have the feeling that I'm on the edge of losing control, and I hate that thought. Not so on Monday; he was right in my hands the whole time, energetic, but disciplined.
This is him and I before our ride:
Tuesday morning I took Daisy out for a ride Western. We headed out on a road we generally ride on, but we didn't turn back where we normally do. She was getting bored and lazy with the roads we always ride on, so we carefully crossed a busy road onto a new road. As I expected, she instantly perked up and was curious about her surroundings again. Love that!
The last time she was trimmed, I fear she was trimmed too short (in fact, I know; her sole was visibly too low to the ground) and as a result, she's been sensitive on stones. This aggravates me, because trimmed correctly, I know she (and all horses) can be sound, but being an advocate for barefootedness is not easy when my own horse isn't sound. I've been using her easyboot gloves for every single ride, which solves the issue and she's fine that way, but I still wish she could just go bare.
Ah well. Onwards and upwards,
1 comment:
If only I understood horse and riding lingo I could leave a meaningful comment.
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