heat wave!

Lucy was very chipper today (then again, so was I! It was 50 degrees!!). I went to get her out of her paddock and she was like, "hi! hi! how are ya! hi! what's up! where's my treat! hi!"

She was fantastic under saddle, but it was because she wanted to canter so badly during what I wanted to be our warm up, so finally I was just like, fine, get it out of your system, and she proceeded to give me the most lovely, relaxed, happy canter we've ever had. Going to the left, she picked up the wrong lead along the long side of the arena, with the corner fast approaching. I was going to ask her to do a simple change (trot first, then pick up the correct lead) but she saw the corner and on her own accord executed a lovely flying change. Smart girl.

After I let her canter both directions for a good five minutes each she was able to concentrate better on the trot work, and I felt like the whole ride was very productive! Yay!

She was quite sweaty and I decided it was the perfect opportunity to take her for a walk on the road (in hand) so I untacked her and put her cooler on, and off we went. She did great with the cars, bicycles, and dogs until some jerk in a souped-up Jeep passed us at like 40mph without moving over hardly at all or slowing down, and then GUNNED it right when he passed us. I could almost see her little brain melting. Poor thing was on pins and needles after that and spooked repeatedly at the cars...great. I decided to just have her stand on the side of the road perpendicular to the pavement so that she could see the cars approaching and driving away, and this seemed to help a lot. We also said hello to the Heritage horses, who were out enjoying the sunshine in their gorgeous grass turnouts. She was very interested in the horses and kept nickering to them.

When we got back from having our brains fried, I turned her back out and did a bunch of chores (her stall/grain/water, threw hay down from the loft, cleaned all of my tack and boots and bridles, and tidied up in general) and then brought her in and fed her.

Lucy's Mysterious Mirror Friend

Lucy has always been infatuated with her mysterious friend in the mirror.

-This friend looks exactly like Lucy
-This friend seems to be in an indoor that looks exactly like the one Lucy's in!
-This friend copies everything that Lucy does! Amazing!

I catch her going up to the mirror with her ears pricked sometimes. Then she'll see if she can outsmart her friend, and look away all coy-like, and then when her friend is least expecting it, quickly glance in the mirror. Then she seems to get frustrated because this friend always knows when she's going to be looking, and the friend looks at the exact same time!

The video below is about 7 minutes long but she was such a joy to watch tonight playing in the indoor that I had a hard time cutting down the footage.

She was much more manageable under saddle tonight but that was probably because the barn was totally deserted so we had the indoor all to ourselves, and she had plenty of time to get all of the kinks out hehe. She was having a great time.

The best part of our ride, of which there is some footage in the video, was our canter to the right. She was so much more relaxed than she has been, and I felt so confident in her that after a few laps, I gave her a longer rein, sat back, and really trusted her. She was awesome.

Here's the video!

Canter progress!

Tonight's ride started off on the wrong hoof. She fought me with everything, and I fought back. After ten minutes of this we were getting nowhere, and let's face it: a 130lb person is rarely going to win a fight against an 1100lb horse.

SO, we started over, and I am so glad we did. Our canter work was ahhhmazing compared to what I've gotten from her in the past. She felt relatively balanced, wasn't out of control, wasn't four-beating around the corners, and I actually enjoyed myself! Amazing.

Here is a video :)

I have been giving a lot of thought to Lucy's show name. Technically, Kenny gets to pick it, but I have still been daydreaming about some ideas.

I've seen a lot of horses lately with numbers as part of their show names. Is this a trend within certain breeds, or a common thing? I came up with Phoenix 11 last night and for whatever reason, I really like this. 11 is for November, the month that I bought her in. Phoenix is after the bird, not the city. A phoenix symbolizes rebirth, healing, and second chances.

For those of you who show, how did you come up with your horse's show names? Did they come with the name, or did you think of it yourself? Did you have the show name picked out and then base the barn name off of that?

Lucy and the Trot Poles

Last night was our second ride since Lucy's adjustment. The first ride was supposed to be just walking and trotting, but we were allowed to do a bit more on the second ride. We did the usual warm-up and then since there were already trot poles set up in the ring, I asked her to walk over them. The first few times she went over them, she picked her feet up really high. It was the cutest thing. As she got more comfortable with them, though, she settled right down and walked and trotted over them with no issues. She is so smart!

We moved onto a bit of canter work and she did not feel as though she was rushing as much as she had before she was adjusted. She still felt fast, but after looking at the video I am realizing that she has such a long stride that everything feels so much bigger than it looks. She felt much looser through her back and hips last night, and she even stretched down into the (minimal) contact a few times, which she was promptly praised for. I try to make our rides short but sweet and to the point, and we always end on a good note. I try to start with something she already feels comfortable with, then introduce something new, then go back to practicing whatever we had worked on in the last session. That way I feel like we always end with both of us feeling confident.

Kenny rode after I did. He does such a nice job with Lucy. He is a naturally gifted rider and he communicates so well through his position and voice.

Here is a rather long video of our ride last night.