Anniversary Ride

Brian and I have now officially been married for two whole years, so we decided to celebrate by spending the early afternoon at the barn. It is warmer today, though still super mucky, but we brought the boys in and cleaned them up. We wanted them to run around a little in the indoor arena but they mostly just wanted to stand around. Finally, Bear did deign to roll. He tries to be dainty but he doesn’t always pull it off:

I hopped on Steen bareback while Brian finished grooming Bear and did groundwork. Steen was a bit pushy during grooming, almost to the point that I thought I’d need to do some groundwork with Steen too. But he calmed down so I decided to try riding, and he surprised me. He was actually great. We did some work at the walk and a lot at the trot, and the gait is getting more consistent and natural feeling again. He’s also slimmed down a bit, which isn’t ideal, but I can tell he’s building some muscle too so hopefully it all balances out. Maybe I’ll try to get loping back on my list of things I do regularly in the next couple of weeks.

Towards the end of the ride, Gay and Doc joined us, which meant we had three horses and riders in our tiny little indoor. While not ideal, it went ok and as they are all geldings and pretty quiet, nobody got excited about anything. It’s actually probably good for all of them, to get used to being near other horses who aren’t necessarily connected to what they’re doing in any way.

After our ride Steen got a snack of chopped hay and Bear got an apple core. Bear didn’t think that was super fair, particularly since he has also slimmed down a bit.

Horseback Hours YTD: 3:50