A Ride in the Sun: 1 mile

For just the briefest of moments this weekend, we had warm(er) weather and it was sunny and clear Saturday and Sunday AND I didn't have to go into work. The stars were aligned, y'all. 

It was a dead horse kind of day. Pink is Gwyn, flat out, and purple but blending in is Saffron, also down but not totally out.

"Mom, you have treats, right?"

Since shedding season has FINALLY begun (yay spring!) I took my time grooming Gwyn. In anticipation of ramping up some work with her, I also gave her the tracest of clips. My first time ever. No judging. This is where she sweats the most so it should help, especially at our endurance ride in April. I might do more for her in April depending on how much of her coat she's blown out.

After tacking up we took to the still sn*wy and wet arena for a 'what is your energy level like today' lunge.

Pokey pony was pokey. I didn't even bother lunging the other side. I could barely get her to trot without a lunge whip. She was of the "ewwww mom, my feet are splashing cold sand on my belly" opinion and just didn't wanna.

I figured that was a good mindset to have for a toodling kind of ride.

"Please can we be done?"

So I hopped on and we did lots of walking work with bending and walk halt transitions and some trotting but really the arena needed one more day of sun before I felt comfortable doing a lot of trot work in it. I need to go through and salt and drag it before the plants take hold.

I did set this up. We walked over it. Gwyn did not touch the poles. That's pretty big. She's usually very lazy with her feet.

We also did the first exercise from the Jumping Exercises book. I did a few extra stuff using this basic set up like a clover leaf pattern with smaller 10m circles. 

So sunny!

Parked out, for her.  Gwyn, you are not a Morgan or Saddlebred. 

I think she was happy for the attention though. Now that she's shedding I'll be making sure to groom pretty much every day so we can keep the itchies at bay. Saffron won't shed for a while but will suddenly be sleek in July. That donkey is enigmatic. I also pulled blankets from them since the weather seems to be on the up and up with no precipitation forecast for a week.

It'll mean less clean horses but they'll be fine, the woolly beasts.

We got about a mile of work in 30 minutes. So we weren't particularly marching. But it was a rejuvenating, warm ride.