Officially Official

That Saturday was blustery and the first colder rainy day of fall.  My trainer wanted to do a lesson on the spot where we had some problems with balking to see if we could overcome it.  For the last two weeks I have been doing groundwork like a boss.  Lots of yielding and can you be soft and no, you may not eat grass while we're walking.

Giving me pony side eye about this whole dressage business.

I was so anxious on Saturday though, that I almost cancelled.  I'm already nervous riding outside of an arena, so to then add in blustery, cold weather almost tipped me over the edge.  Let me just skip to the result, which was that between my ground work and our relationship getting better, he didn't even try anything besides sort of slowing down.  When I asked him to move on, he would ask "Are you SURE I can't go back to my stall?"  I said "Yes, I'm sure." and he sighed deeply and went back to work.  All of this was outside, in the wind and the rain and he continued this attitude when a horse got loose and galloped all around the farm getting all the other horses worked up. Let me say that again, he just toodled along while a loose horse galloped around the farm.  Yes, I'll take this one please.

So, I would like to formally introduce my new horse, Chance.  His fancy pants registered name is A Chance to Dream Big.  He's 10 years old, 16 hands and had a great start in life with his first mom.  She bought him as a 2 year old and then did 4-H, drill team, trail riding stuff with him.  She's only selling him because she's getting married and starting a family and doesn't have time for him.  He's a solid citizen with not much of a spook in him.

We've been slowly getting to know one another and I like him more every day. He can untie his own lead rope and the place I'm boarding (five minutes from my house!) only has one set of cross ties, so we're usually using a tie ring.  I've learned to do my quick tie knot and then make eight loops.  He works through the loops and by the time he's at the last one, I'm done anyway.  Ha!  Nice try, pony.  Nice try.

The other thing I'm learning about him is that he was always clean and fancy when I saw him.  Now that he's turned out in a pasture with other horses, he's a piglet.  It's so hard to be a horse momma when you're obsessed with clean horses.  I spend about forty minutes every day grooming him and then he goes right back out and rolls.  Sigh.  Boys.

Ten seconds before he rolled.  

Yoga Pose Musthavegrass

I put this one in for anyone who has arena envy.  This is my boarding facility's brand new 200X200 state of the art outdoor arena.  It's very fancy.  Of course, since completing it, it has rained like we're gearing up for Noah's ark so we haven't been able to use it as much as we'd like.  Still...it's swoon worthy.