Hippo!

 Today was fun! It was a lovely warm first day of February. Like... 64 degrees! And sunny! A bit of a breeze and definitely still a bit crispy in the air, but lovely! We went to Ashland to ride and met Kelli and Marvin. We had to ride in the jump arena because Pony Club was using the dressage arena's, but that was okay. I had Kelli peek at Lyric's dressage saddle on Funny and she thought it wasn't a bad fit. So.. I decided that I would walk it up to the arena and then swap out if she was going well. 

So we tacked up and walked up to the jump arena. Funny was a really good girl, especially considering all the chaos. We started in her usual jump saddle and she was great. She was still quick but doing better than recently. And she was more consistent, although still inconsistent. She wasn't as chompy either. She still wants to overbend in her neck tracking left instead going straight in her thoracic girdle area and she definitely bends around my left leg easier than my right leg. But she was good and tried. 

So, I decided that she was being lovely enough that it was worth tossing the dressage saddle on her and seeing if anything changed. And.. it actually didn't. She was maybe a hair fussier with her face at first, but that could have been because I was sitting different or she was just mad at some random thing. And it was so mild. But really, nothing changed. She didn't get sucked back behind my leg. She didn't crow hop or swap her leads. She didn't stop and plant. She felt... pretty good. So we kept riding and then picked up the canter. And she was fine. We got our left lead both times and there was no bucking or any nonsense. Yay! We played a little bit more and got some nice trot. She still wants to get quicker after we canter, but it wasn't worse than usual. We didn't ride too terribly much because we had spent so much time doing saddle stuff and then we stopped to watch Kelli some too. But... she seemed happy in it, so.. maybe it will work. Although watching the video there is some "chatter" in the back end, so we'll see. Hopefully Patty can check her while we're in Aiken next weekend. 

So then I put her jump saddle back in the trailer and decided to take the dressage one off too. I figured it was warm enough, I'd let her splash in the lake. Good thing I took the saddle off because she went down about 10 times and tried to roll too. It was hilarious because Marvin was just calmly standing there at the edge while Funny was wallowing around like a hippo! She is JUST like Dan... smacking the water with her foot so angrily! She would splash it right up in my face too somehow! Hee hee. Then down she'd go... then back up... paw, down again... back up. hee hee. We had fun. But brrrr it was a bit chilly! My whole leg from the thihg down was soaked. My boots may take days to dry! And I had water and sand splashed all over my shirt and face. But... worth it. She had fun!

We had a nice long hack after too and even trotted the little log on the other side of the lake. Good pony!!!

The only down side to the day was that when we got back to the trailer I noticed she had slid her shoe half off and stepped on the clip! Luckily it was just in the white line so she wasn't even sore. I have no idea when she did it... whether it was in the lake... on the way back.. or tied to the trailer after??? I didn't notice any lame steps and I picked her feet out before we rode, so I know she did it sometime during the ride. I managed to pull it off and hopefully Patrick will come tomorrow.