I Think Someone Had Dynamite for Breakfast....

Finally! I got out to ride today! After 2 weeks of having stupid cold, it's gone away enough that I can actually go out and ride Old Man. Sheesh, I mean, it's only been about 2 weeks since I've ridden him.

So I got out to my parents place around 11 and went inside to see if Sam would want to come join me. She kept saying no, that she wasn't feeling good. Whatever. So I put on my winter stuff, bundled up and went out into the cold. Grabbed the treats for Dollar from my car and headed to the back. Grabbed a lead rope and managed to get him out of the holding pen without letting the others out. Got him up to the fence and decided that I was just going to ride him bareback with the halter and lead rope today and just have some fun. Since I don't have an indoor arena, I can't really train during winter unless I want to haul somewhere, so we were going to have some fun today. I quickly checked him over and was disappointed to see that the other horses have still been attacking him. He's got small chunks of fur missing from his main body and I know it's from the other horses picking on him. Not too impressed with that.

One of the couple places on him that the fur has been pulled out by the other horses.

Not impressed

I let him grab a drink of water and then brought him to the fence and hopped on. I could already tell that he was hyper. Well, at least he's not lazy! We got to walking around just to let him stretch out and he was feeling pretty good. Except he was being weird in his own little way. He kept pinning his ears back, but I wasn't doing anything to him. Wonder? I tested his flexing, which he did perfectly. It's nice to know that he remembers that from long ago. See, when I first got him, he went into training with my trainer. Bob taught him how to flex his neck so that his face would be at your boot and he'd hold it there until you told him to go the other way, just to stretch out his neck before riding. Well, now when you ask him to flex, he turns it the way you ask him to, holds it there for a while, and then goes the other way and holds it there for a while. Smart one. And I also caught a cute picture of the kitten Ruth. She just got kicked out of the house by Dad (he doesn't like indoor cats, she's Mom's) and she had decided to try to follow me. But when I turned Dollar to shoo her away she went running away and then hopped into some snow. And sat there crying. Yup, she doesn't like the snow either. Lol.

Drinkin'

Flex to the left......

Now to the right.... (stupid snow flake got in the way)

Ruth in the snow

Once he was good walking around, I asked him to jog, now his jog is usually pretty slow and nice. Usually. Today, we had TROT. Yup, we had a nice trot today and I think even some sort of extended trot as well. Impressive for an old man. But he was still putting his ears back. By this time, we had been riding for almost 45 minutes, so I decided to have a bit of fun with him. While going down the long side, I asked him to lope. Nope, he went into a faster trot. Then I turned him down center line and he booked it home. Of course, when we got to the fence, he slowed down and made a nice turn to the left while I was laughing. That felt so good to do that with him. So of course, we did it again. At the end of the 2nd round, I figured I'd get a video of this. So I set my camera up on the post and this is what we got...



Fun, fun, FUN!

Of course, when I grabbed the camera afterwards to play the video, my batteries died. Well at least they didn't die while filming. So I hopped off, tied him up and went inside the house to ask Sam if she had any batteries. Of course, she was snarky as well and said no and asked why I needed them. I told her that I wanted to see the video that I took of me and Dollar having fun. She just looked at me and said that I shouldn't be loping Dollar because he's out of shape. Umm...we've spent 30-40 minutes just walking and trotting and did like 5 minutes of loping. And he was fine. And needed that out of his system. I just told her whatever and headed back outside.

Then I went into the barn and managed to find 2 blankets that might fit Dollar. I decided to put a spring blanket on him so that the other horses can stop taking chunks out of him. I gave him his treats and then proceeded to try the first blanket on. Yeah right. It was about 2-3 feet TO SHORT!. Damn, he has a long back. So I took that one off and tried the other one. This one actually fits him nicely with a bit of room to spare for all his winter coat.

Styling his blanket!!

Once he was all fitted up and had finished all his treats, I turned him back into the holding pen, but this time took off his halter. He doesn't need it in the holding pen. Cleaned up my stuff and went back inside the house.  Told Sam not to take his blanket off at all as I do not need a bald horse by the end of winter. She just looked at me as if I was crazy for putting a blanket on him and I explained to her that it was a spring blanket and no need to worry. Sheesh.

Once I was done with everything/one, I grabbed my stuff and left. Hoping that I can get out again soon...