In Which We Find The Spunk

Finally got out to ride again today! Seeing as Keith was at work in the evening, I packed up V around 4 and headed down to my parents place so that my Mom could watch her while I rode.

Once I made sure that V was content with Grandma, I grabbed my bridle and new saddle pad from the car and headed to the back. Dollar's all by himself in the holding pen now as Dad's new horse Jack is at a barn for training, Sam's horses are at her new place and Natalie's horse is at a different barn for training. So needless to say Dollar was pretty happy to see me as you can see in the video..




Once I got him out of the holding pen, I brought him up to the barn and got him quickly tacked up. I threw away my old saddle pad (the one that mice had gotten into) and put my new saddle pad on him. Yup, purple still looks good.

The old saddle pad that mice had gotten into

Dollar showing off his new saddle pad

Once we were all ready to go, I had to climb the fence in order to hop on to him. I still hurt if I stretch too much and I don't have a mounting block, so the fence comes in handy. He behaved like the perfect gentleman he is and stood completely still while I mounted. Whew.

We went to the far end of the arena again, set our circle and got to work. My goal was to work his walking and jogging as cantering is out of the question because of all the snow and I don't want to risk slipping on ice hiding under the snow. Oh, and I also remembered to grab my crop this time. It came in handy.

As we worked the walking and trotting, he did pretty good. He did realize that I had my crop, so he was a little more energetic in his movements, which is good for him. But then we ran into an issue. I had asked him to move into a trot again from a walk and he was being lazy about it. So I asked him again, a little more firmer. Nothing. So I swatted him with my crop. Next thing I know, his head goes down, and his butt goes up, snorting while doing so, and then moves into a trot, not looking very pleased.

And this is my brain: C'mon, move Old Man *swat*......HEY, YOU BUCKED ON ME!!!

Luckily it wasn't anything big, and he just kept moseying on afterwards. And nothing happened to me (lucky). I had barely became unseated, so I just hunkered my butt down, gave him a scolding (and laughing in my head) and went about our business. Guess he just wanted to show me that he still had spunk left.

After that little incident, I set him to work, doing quite a bit of trotting and working our halts, reverse and turns. This is where he was just showing off for me, probably just sucking up. Lol.

I ended the ride after about 30 minutes of working and he wasn't even sweating yet. But then again, it's been really beautiful here right now. Barely any snow for middle of February in Central Canada. But it does work well for riding right now.

And I'm still surprised as to what my Old Man can pull off. He'll be 20 this summer and still manages to act like he's 5 some days. Oh well, that's why I love him.