For Realz

Today was an amazing spring day in the Pacific NW.  I like to think I brought the sunshine back from Arizona.  It was blue skies and temps in the high 60s.  Lovely, just lovely.  I hadn't seen the princess since last Sunday.  When I left her, she was on stall rest with a nasty case of scratches in one leg.  She has since been on antibiotics (her last day is today) and has continued stall rest.  She hadn't been ridden since Thursday and hadn't gotten out of her stall since Friday.  There was some mess up with who was supposed to turn her out in the arena that resulted in her not getting out at all.  So I wasn't sure what to expect when I showed up this morning.  This is what I got:

Hi Mom!  This is my friend, Knox.  He's the same age as me!

Look how pretty I am.  Ooh, what's that over there?

I wish I could kiss Knox.  

 Groomed her thoroughly, which meant removing another ten pounds of hair.  Her leg was still warm, but she was sound so I took her in to lunge her.  She poked around, quietly jogging, then trotting and picking up her canter with minimal headshaking.  After about two minutes, I stopped her.  Laura walked by and yelled across the arena "You don't need to lunge that horse.  She doesn't explode anymore."

Since Tessa was standing next to me, resting a hind leg, I figured she was probably right.  So I saddled up.  Laura had me put on a martingale for my ride, just to keep her from flinging that flexible Arab neck into my nose when she got pissy.  Our ride was mostly uneventful.  It had some crabby moments and some great moments where her trot was forward and she practically pulled me to the other side of the arena.  She did want to hang out with the other horses and would slow down whenever we got close to one.

'Does this martingale make my head look big?'

We then headed back to the cross ties for some more relaxing, more shedding, some clipping.  Tess suddenly had to pee so I dragged her back to her stall.  When I put her back in the cross ties, she hunched her back and winked.  Oh!  My pony is in heat!  AND SHE WAS QUIET!  AND SWEET!

So, to recap quickly, the only major change in my pony's life is that she has not been living outside for almost two weeks.  She has had constant companionship with the horses next to her and gets out in the arena, but she was worked much less this week than normal AND she was in heat and she was so pleasant and easy going.  I really think that she just wants the comfort of the other horses close by all the time.  Or she's growing up.  Or she actually loves being inside??!!  Maybe she's a freak of nature horse.

Now I just need to figure out how to get this hair out of this saddle pad.....

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