Sunday, June 22, 2008

After so long...

I'm sitting here on the couch writing, and wishing I was riding, again. Tomorrow I'm either riding early in the morning, or early evening. Sam is on call this weekend so he has to go into the office for an hour or so, and after he got home we went to Applebee's for a pancake breakfast in support of a local American Legion baseball team. Then is was down to the feed store to get Duke's hay and beet pulp. Then we stopped at the house so I could get changed into my riding clothes and Sam wanted to find the electric clippers to clip a bridle path on Duke. Sam never found the clippers and we concluded that our youngest had run off with them.

By the time we arrived at the stable it was almost noon, and getting very hot. After we put the hay up and visited with a friend who'd brought his granddaughter and her pony down for a ride, I saddled Duke and led him to the outdoor round pen. I wanted to use the indoor round pen, but it was already being used.

Once inside the round pen, after a brief lungeing exercise I slipped off his halter and put on his bridle. Sam stood by, camera in hand, ready to capture these moments in time. Getting up into the saddle is starting to get a bit easier for me and I no longer need someone to boost me up.

Duke did great! After he quit playing with the bit in his mouth, and settled down (I'm not sure who was more excited about this ride, me or Duke). The day I bought him he needed work on his stops, but today his stops improved. He still needs work on backing up, and I may ask the trainer at the stable to work on that for me. We walked and for the first time, trotted. He has a real floating trot, it not jarring like so many horses are. It felt nice and smooth...oh so floaty. Tomorrow we'll canter for the first time. I can't wait to feel what his canter is like...I wonder will it be a rocking horse canter or a glider chair canter. We'll see tomorrow.


Of course he had to poop, and smell another pile left by some other horse.

Sam took lotsof pics, as you can see, and even a video of us trotting around the pen. The file is too large for me to upload to AOL, but if I can get it uploaded somewhere else, I'll add it later.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

would love to see the video!

Nancy