Rain, rain, go away!

The rain here has been nonstop lately. Originally the bwp (bad weather peeps) forecasted a beautiful weekend. I knew they lied when I woke up Saturday morning to thunder and lightening. It dried out around 10 but still looked gloomy. Throughout the day the sun would peek out here and there as if to taunt me but it never stayed long. Later that night after threats all day of more rain but no rain I decided to hit the road (ride 29).

Before hitting the road I thought I’d try some bending with Cat in the drive. Have I mentioned how much I hate this exercise? I apparently need to revisit some videos.

There is something on the neighbor’s property that freaks Cat out every time we go on a road ride (cause you know we’ve been on so many). I worked her in circles and finally got her past it. Right off the bat I started off doing ORS at the trot. I honestly think Cat counts because when I do my ORS I will trot 6 – 8 strides and then sit, sit, sit before doing a ORS. It doesn’t take very many repetitions before she’s starting to suck back on stride 8. When she does that then I ask her to keep moving and do a ORS when she’s not sucking back. I don’t think she has the “sit” part down yet.

On down the road I decided to switch from ORS to working on “whoa”. I think a fence line would work much better because Cat wasn’t “gettin it” and I know she’s not that dumb. We made it all the way to rollercoaster road without any issues. Most of the horses get a bit nervous on this road due to the trees lining the road and the cattle. This time it was the laughter of children that got Cat’s attention.

The neighbors must have been throwing a party. Cat could hear the commotion but she couldn’t see it and that made her nervous. What a perfect opportunity to do some bending! Once we made it to the bottom of the hill I kicked Cat into “high gear” and loped her to the top of the hill. Normally I let her stop on the top of the first hill but she was still pretty fast so this time I pushed her up to the top of the second hill. She was happy to stop when I sat an asked. I reached down to grab my phone to find out what time it was and………………..yep…………………I lost my phone………………..again!

I decided to forge on anyways so with a squeeze Cat and I were off again. The rest of the ride we worked on ORS from the trot and a little bit of cantering. She was nervous passing the big barking dog but not as bad as last time. The horses in the field running got her attention but she quickly lowered her head. It is amazing what a 7 mile ride will do! It was 8:45 when I returned to the farm. I quickly tied her up & jumped on the 4 wheeler to go find my phone. Of course it was on vibrate so I had to actually look for it. This is the one time when I think one of those ugly pink cases would come in handy!

I finally found it about 20 feet from where I realized I’d lost it (bangs head). Now if the weather will clear up a bit maybe I can finally get that 30th ride in on her!