Back to sound. Again.

I went out on Saturday holding my breath, would Mia be sound?  Who knows!  The barn was BUSY when I got there, 4 other people were getting ready to ride.  I hurried up and got in the arena first and I was glad I did.  Mia was LIT UP and had zero desire to consider any of my suggestions, like, you know, walk.  Haha.  After trying to get a decent trot out of her for 5 minutes and failing miserably, I kicked her into a canter (which she translated to hand gallop) and we cruised around for about 4 minutes before someone wanted to come in.  I was able to bring Mia to a walk and we worked on basics while people filed in.  After the arena was full of 5 horses, we tried to trot and Mia was still having none of this polite trot crap so we stuck to walk.  But it was very obvious Mia was sound, sound, sound!   And wired to explode.

Sunday I went back out in hopes to get a better ride.  My plan was to go on a 40-ish minute road ride and then come back into the arena and do some real work.  That should give Mia plenty of time to get her energy level down while staying low key, plus we hadn't been outside since November-ish.  When I got to the barn, another boarder was there and wanted to join but also wanted to wait for yet another boarder to arrive so we could all go.  Thankfully I am fairly flexible in plans and went into the arena to see the kind of mare I had while I waited for the others to be ready.  Mia was totally back to normal.  No head flinging, no ball of energy, no bolting, she was totally her normal self.  Normal enough I even put her over a couple of the jumps that were in the arena and she was sane!  We did a bending line and then jumped the 2 fences on angles and Mia was totally chill and relaxed.  Oh mare, you silly, silly thing.  One day you are a freak, the next you are normal.  Stop trying to imitate App in his younger years!

Our trail/road ride was awesome, though uneventful.  Mia balked at a huge puddle, though there was a ditch and rock wall and sign behind it so she may have been balking at that instead.  I pushed her through and she was totally fine to go through the puddle after that.  I had such a fun time chatting with the ladies and being outside in the great weather, high 40's!  Woohoo!  (yeah, that is warm for here right now, it's in the 60's this week!!!).

Monday I rode and Mia was NOT awesome anymore, she was very insistent that I was not authorized to move her haunches and she was not able to slow her trot nor get off her forehand.  I ended up picking up Mr Spanky (named appropriately thanks to Carly) and applied said spanks until Mia's mood shifted considerably.  She was also really lagging off of my left leg so I helped remind her to quicken her response time.  Monday was not a fun ride.

Tuesday I went with some barn ladies and saw the Harry and Snowman movie.  How cool of a movie.  I read the book several years ago and wanted to see the movie, I was impressed at how much footage they had from back in the day.  It focused a lot on Harry's business and not much of Snowman after his retirement ceremony, and it ended on a real downer of his death, but it was a good movie and I would recommend it.  Mia also had her teeth done and had a couple of sharp points, but no issues.

Last night I rode again and Mia was AMAZING.  She was a little heavy and fast at times but she really made up for her attitude from Monday.  Around and round we went and Mia was consistent in the bridle, stayed fairly stretched down and didn't flop on her forehand.  We even did some canter and got some decent canter work!  Her right lead needs to strengthen back up again, but with some clicker work, she tried much harder at the end of the ride lol.  My mare will do anything for treats.

I ride this weekend, go to a horse expo next weekend, possibly a lesson on the 5th, a lesson on the 11th and then I am headed to Florida for a week of beach and racecars (alas, no horses planned).  We need to kick it up a notch, our first show is in a month and a half!  If Mia will stay sound, I think we can do it!