Memorial Weekend 2009

Friday night we hauled over to MIL’s (Lucy, Black and Dozer). It was fairly late by the time we arrived so we pretty much unloaded ponies and headed for the house.

Saturday we decided we didn’t want to go anywhere. We just wanted to be lazy and play around the house with the ponies. DH saddled up Black so he could try his new pad on her (we got her an ESP Bio Fit pad) and it worked great! It is specially designed for older horses with atrophy behind the shoulders or for high withered horses. This was the first time she had a solid sweat pattern on her back.

MIL got Sis out and Sis managed to drop her back leg in a hole in the yard (where an old fence post had been dug up) but seemed ok so she hopped on to ride. She asked me a question about moving her over so I hopped on to explain. That turned into about 2 hours worth of riding. I started to get a bit frustrated with Sis and then stopped and moved back to a solid working point and cooled her down. I tend to forget that a lot of steps have been skipped w/her so I can’t expect as much w/her as I do with my own. She was very good though.

That afternoon we got a chuckle out of watching Lucy chase Dozer. Put a rider on her and she would have looked like a roping horse for sure! I didn’t ride her and later that night we noticed that Sis wasn’t acting right. We think she pulled a muscle when she fell in the hole and then my working her for 2 hours didn’t help. We buted her and kept an eye on her and she seemed to improve a little but not much.

Sunday was another lazy day. I hopped on Lu bareback for a little bit but not for long (I still can’t balance on her well enough to ride her bareback). MIL hopped on her too and did better then I did at the walk but when she trotted she immediately gripped w/her legs and Lu went faster. lol

Monday MIL and I decided to go for a trail ride. Sis wasn’t 100% but she wasn’t bad either so we figured we’d take it easy. Yeah right! The trails started off nice but then turned to mud! Deep mud too and it was mixed with clay so it just sucked them in. Lucy was great. I really have no complaints w/her since I rarely ever really ride her and when I do we do little training.

Lu was very good to set back and go slowly down the hills (charging hills is a pet peeve of mine) and she did well with the water crossings as well. We met up with a group & they asked us if we’d like to ride with them. MIL wanted to so I went along. NOT my style of riding! Run up hill, run downhill and basically just go with no consideration to the safety of the horse (or the rider).

We got to a creek where the drop was straight down into deep mud and then into the water and then up. Lucy was first and she patiently waited for me to tell her what to do. The drop was straight down so I gave her my reins and held on to the back of the saddle. She went through like an old pro! Other then Lucy and Sis, the other horses charged the crossing or jumped it. By then we’d decided to head back to the trailer so that we didn’t push it with Sis. It had sprinkled a bit and we didn’t really want to be caught out in a storm either. It was perfect timing too because as soon as we loaded it started to come down.

All-in-all we had a very lovely and relaxing weekend. I’m glad we decided to stay home vs. trying to ride when the trails were packed.