A trip to the arena

Sunday the weather was lovely and the drill team was finally going to get to practice in the big outside arena so DH and I hauled over early to play around. My niece and Chase went with as well.

Sis was a bit of a basket case when we unloaded her so we did a bit of LFR and then tied her on the opposite side of the trailer while Chase and I cleaned up Abby. After we got Abby cleaned up I did some LFR w/her and some backing and then threw Chase up on her. I told him to do ORS at the walk only. About two minutes later he was asking me if he could trot. **bangs head**

DH was riding Max in the arena and Terry had decided to bring Mr. Bishop up to ride too. Sis was settling down so I tacked her up for my niece to ride. She was good as gold as soon as I got Shari up on her back.

As I looked over though I noticed Chase was having problems with Abby. I wasn’t sure if she was bucking, kicking or what she was doing but bless his little heart he got her into a ORS and held on. She did not want to be around Sis. So I had Chase just flex her and when she’d give him resistance I’d let him bump her until she came around. I think he was enjoying that a bit too much.

When they had that down I let him walk off and ORS. Abby was in a bit of a hurry so they didn’t get very far at all. By this time DH had gotten off of Max and was picking up rocks in the arena so I had Chase get off and get on Max. There is only so much I can expect him to do on Abby w/o getting frustrated. So I put my saddle on her and away we went. The first thing I reminded her of was yielding her HQ. Then we just flexed and flexed and flexed. She’s at the “I’m gonna bite your foot” stage when she flexes so she’s going to get a caveson the next time we ride.

By this time the other horses for drill were starting to come in. I did manage to get her to trot and even lope some without any resistance but she did feel tense. When I was done I had her stand in the middle of the arena for a while and then dismounted. I think she was happy to stand back at the trailer.

The first drill run went fairly well. We had three people filling in for individuals that were gone and we were in a bigger arena. The second run………it didn’t go quite so well. As we were rounding the corners to go from two sweeps into one I noticed a horse go down. As I got closer saw Sis on her side and MIL face down in the arena with her leg still under Sis. Sis struggled to get up but finally did and MIL had managed to get her feet out of the stirrups and free.

Sis seemed ok. MIL was shook and worried about Sis but was able to walk it off. Apparently one of the other horses jumped over into Sis’s space causing her to try to get out of the way and slipping.

They have one more practice left before the horse fair but it is raining this week so I have a feeling they will be in the smaller arena.