Saturday, at last. And a license from my great husband to get some horse time. For the past few months, it's all about the weekend because my job doesn't allow weekday horse time right now. Life is tough lately with my job and very little time to do things that I enjoy.
The plan was to go to Jen's place, coach her a little more with her horse and spend a little time with a couple of my horses at her neighborhoods large arena. I was thinking to take Nina, for trailer experience, and Cowboy for large arena passenger lesson riding. I started off loading Cowboy...
He was happy to go in, but he was not cool with staying in. I had hay in the trailer and he'd go in relaxed, eat it, but when I went to close the panel, he became unconfident. I'm doing my best to get Cowboy past the unconfidence - I didn't want to force him to stay in the trailer.
I decided that it might him if another horse was already in the trailer. I decided to get Nina since she's pretty confident and she really needs more exposure. She, like Cowboy, was happy to get in the trailer. She wasn't confident to stay in, though. I need to spend some time getting the horses comfortable with being IN the trailer. Darn! I let Nina go back with the herd.
So, I decided to get my trailer-nanny, Rain. She walked in, took her spot and I closed her panel. Cowboy was even happier to get in, but still wasn't happy to see the panel start to close. I was surprised because I've loaded him and trailered him before with no trouble. I realize I haven't played with him much lately and maybe that's part of the problem. I'll be spending time with him tomorrow for sure. I decided to get him in successfully, let him stand quietly a couple times, and then send him back out with the herd.
Finally, I decided to take Z with us. I didn't want to take her originally. I wanted her to see that not every trailer ride would include her. However, I didn't have other horses ready to go. I went to get Z, she came right to me. I walked her out, thinking to play with her a few minutes before loading her. She was pulling to the trailer as soon as we walked out of the barn!! I was shocked. So, i went with it. She hopped in and off we went.
Oye!
Got to Jen's and went to the arena to work on some freestyle riding. Z had a ton of energy and so I cantered and galloped her around as long as she needed to. We did some nice flying lead changes and jumped a few of the lower jumps. I let her go as fast as she wanted and then some. It was chilly and even snowed on us some. It didn't last, though - I had to keep opening her up. She just had so much energy! Jen made some great break-throughs and I was just ecstatic for her. Then, Z, Rain and I went on a nice 2 hour trail ride with my trail buddy Nancy.
Z was still full of energy and we did some good cantering. Rain was a little slow and I felt like Olive Oil a couple times with Z moving out fast and Rain trying to keep up but lagging behind. It was a really great ride and a great day with my mares. Nina and Cowboy next session...
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