Friday, March 5, 2010

a pleasant surprise

Lucy has had most of the week off because I have had a horrible time with my neck and back. I really wanted to ride today and naturally I decided it would be a perfect opportunity to ride bareback. Alone. At night.

I was expecting three things: 1) theatrics, 2) possibly being tossed, and 3) shark-fin withers. I am happy to report that she was SUPER well-behaved, I didn't get tossed (or even feel unbalanced at all!!!) and she was actually really comfy to ride bareback! The only time I had an "issue" with her withers was when we were trotting around and she started to get heavy in the front end and I kind of got dragged forward (um, hello abdominal muscles!).

All said and done, though, she is AWESOME to ride bareback. Her trot is really really smooth and I was able to relax my legs around her and to my surprise, we got about five strides of really nice trot in there. I was feeling brave enough to canter so when she was going nicely, I gave her the cue but then monster pony came out of hiding and that idea was promptly replaced with "woahhhhhhhhhhh. woahhh!!!!!!" and small circles.

Before I got on, I had given her the chance to run around a bit but she really wasn't interested. After I rode, I gave her another chance since she had been so up about the canter cue, and she ran and bucked and squealed for twenty minutes. It was very entertaining! Then I spent probably half an hour grooming her and got a lot of fluff out of her.

We also did some stretches tonight before I rode, and when I had her turning her head and neck around to her hind end to stretch for the treat, her neck adjusted itself on both sides.

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