Smartest of Pants

 Great lesson

keep her challenged

set up STUFF at home.. not just poles... pole piles... pick a path 

best baby girl

learned from her mistakes... green baby jumping but learning

short hack before

Ugh... S is for I SUCK

 Not a great ride.... I wasn't in the right head space... got irritated at her.... stiff to the right... counterbent...

but did start off with some nice yielding of the shoulders and introduced hindquarters... 

S is for Sass

 And sweating! Holy cow it was hot today!

 (Funny was Dan's sleepover friend last night)

We had Tasida back out to check our saddles! We met here again because we couldn't ride at Ashland. And it was nice because I'm not sure I could have handled both girls at the same time at Ashland. Kelli went first and then I did Funny. I figured that I could pop on her and ride real quick and then if I saved Lyric til the end, I could ride more after Tasida checked her, since she hasn't been ridden since the show. 

So Funny's saddle had settled a bit and Tasida flocked it back up. She did agree that the slightly more narrow gullet plate was the better choice, so we left that in. I told her I was still having some struggles with the saddle rolling side to side a bit, so we tried an H girth on it. 

She was feral today!! I don't know why she's so much worse at home than at Ashland. Although, maybe that's not true. She just happened to be super good at Ashland the other day, but she's not always super good there. But she was a hot mess today. Maybe it's because there was no friends up there with her... maybe because she had an audience (Kelli and Tasida)... maybe just because. But she was amped up. However, I did manage to not get dumped today! And honestly, she didn't even try to dump me. It was more just SPEED and bracing. I tried to be soft and ride through it but.. it wasn't a great ride. sigh... Oh well. The saddle did feel better though. It did still feel like it was slipping a hair but at least it was only a tiny bit. And to be fair, she was fish tailing around a good bit. Kelli got video but it's so bad I just deleted it. Not only is Funny feral, but Kelli's videography skills were severly lacking today. ;) Almost as bad as pivo. 

 

Sigh... Tasida probably thinks I'm a clueless rider. Oh well. I was tempted to get back on her later but... figured I would just let it go. Plus, it's so hot and she was so sweaty. I really am going to need to clip her if this weather doesn't actually turn to Fall soon!

E is for Excellence!

Funny was such a good girl today!

  

Yesterday I took Dan for his surgery. And she was SOOOOO sad when I brought the trailer back without him. She misses him and was even calling for him. Poor girl! I promise I'll bring him back! So today.... after I finished work (Only had one patient... an emergency) I took her to Ashland to help cheer her up. Because she was extra sad when my patient showed up in the same trailer as mine... and it wasn't Dan!!! She was like "DANNY!!!! He's back.. yay.... wait... WTF are you?!?". ha ha... Sorry sis! 

 

So we headed to Ashland and rode with Kelli. We got lucky and were able to sneak in a ride in the arenas before they started prepping them for the show. And she was SOOOO good. Like seriously good!! She was much more bendy both directions and much less inverted and bracey. I was so proud! We got all our canter leads too! And even after cantering, she was still pretty darn good at the trot. It was worse than in the beginning, but only mildly so and we were able to get it soft again pretty quickly. Towards the end of our ride she did get behind the vertical a little but I was able to bump her up. We didn't do a ton because she was so good. Plus, it's so darn hot for this time of year and she's pretty fuzzy so she was sweaty! So we sat in the shade and waited on Kelli to finish her ride. Funny was chewing on the arena letters but stood quietly and waited. Good girl!

 

So then we went for a hack. It was a bit of a stop and start kind of hack because Marvin was being a slug and then we took a couple of photo stops. The colors were beautiful! I was going to the lake but then it dawned on me.... I can't!! I still have her saddle on. Whoops! I'm sorry baby girl! But you will DEFINITELY roll today.... So we went around and went in the woods. She was a bit jumpy today... and spooked about 7 times on our ride. But they were all the spook in place kind of spooks and not that bad. She's growing up! She's gone from trying to dump me to just spooking and letting me stay with her. The worst one was when we came up on a buck in the middle of the trail. He was stopped and stared at us and she stopped and stared at him. And then he moved and she spun and bolted. I was just about to take a photo too. Doh! But luckily she only bolted a few steps and let me pull her up. And then later, the heron flew out 3 separate times before he finally flew the opposite direction. But she barely flinched at him. He wasn't yelling at us this time, so not nearly as scary! Then at the end of the ride, she froze and shifted back hard and stared. I thought it was a shadow moving from the wind blowing leaves but nope.. it was a snake. Good girl! But carry on. And she did. 

 

We had a nice lovely ride and while we were in the XC field we popped over the two warm up logs for fun and then the green bench. Then later we popped over the log in the field by the lake. I wanted to take her over a few more in the XC field but it was so hot and she was tired. So we didn't. 

 

I'm excited about how well she flatted today! She's growing up! 

Well, mostly. When we got home, Lyric apparently thought she was Dan at first and misses him too, because she nickered and came galloping up. She was not impressed by Funny. hee hee