Going for a trail ride

Sorry for the long delay, between being super busy and losing power, it has been crazy here!  My goal last weekend was to finally ride Mia on the road.  I have walked her around the pasture a couple of times now and she is doing really well, she is now remembering how to steer and stop which is really nice.  On Saturday I decided it was The Day.  A friend, we will call her RB5 even though she doesn't ride much, was supposed to come over but had to cancel but waited until she was supposed to arrive to actually cancel.  That sucked, now it was 445p and it was going to be dark at 530p.  I hurried up and saddled Mia up and asked SO if he would come walk with me.  He said yes until he realized I was riding a horse in which case he bailed on me because Mia walks too fast.  ARGH!  I wanted someone to come with us on our first ride out in case I was catapulted and now everyone had bailed.

Because I am super stubborn, I said FINE and went off by myself on a greener than grass horse.  It was really, really hard to keep a relaxed seat as by this time I was a buzz of energy, afraid she was going to have a huge spook at any moment. We went .7 miles down to the first large intersection and then came back and by the time we turned around I had finally relaxed.  Enough that we even trotted a couple of times!  I kept them very short, only about 50 feet at a time and as soon as she stopped plodding along and started to pick up her step I brought her back to a walk.  Good girl!  We made it back in one piece and it was a great experience for both of us.

This past week didn't allow much riding time but I did ride Mia twice and she is becoming MUCH more confident in the contact.  We worked on keeping her inside shoulder up instead of dropped around corners and we are making progress.  Add the fact she is riding with her head down at a normal level and accepting contact, I would say the steering is now 100%!  At least until we canter lol.

This past weekend was super busy, there was tons of housework and horsework plus I gave 3 lessons on Saturday and on Sunday went to a used tack swap.  I found some amazing deals again, last year I found a Back on Track saddle pad for $5.  This year I found a Mattes correctional half pad with shims for $40!  Score!  When things finally settled down on Sunday I went for a ride around the block and rode the App and ponied the TWH again.  They both need to become fit and ponying is becoming a very easy way to work 2 horses at once.  When I did it last weekend, I trotted only a third to a half of the 3 mile loop.  This time I trotted half to 2/3rds of the loop.  The App decided that he was in no way an old man, despite having his workout he was as ready to go when we got back as when we started.  My little energizer bunny, he always has been.

Sunday is also when we lost power and we aren't expected to get it back until at least Saturday.  We will see how it goes, right now we are running on generator power.  As long as nothing else runs, I can run the arena lights to ride.  Keeping my fingers crossed as I have my first lesson on Mia on Thursday, I really don't want to have to reschedule!

Hopefully I will have time to blog more next week, things are just crazy around here.  I was even 5 days behind on reading everyone's blogs, something that I don't usually get behind more than a day or two on!  I will finish catching up and hopefully have lots to talk about after my lesson.