Making Strides

Today was a significantly better day on the horse home front in comparison to yesterday. My mother in law took Kiki to the park for a walk in the late morning (something that I very much welcomed because, generally speaking, I get pretty much zero help on the baby front on a regular basis.) During which time Sonj came over and gave me an equitation lesson on Cool.

By “equitation lesson” I mean that I asked her to sit in the middle of my ring and yell at me to do all the things that I don’t have the motivation to do on my own, such as no stirrup work, which she made me do in abundance while Cool and I both complained quietly to ourselves about it. In all seriousness though, she was actually really helpful and I’m almost 98% certain that I won’t be able to walk tomorrow.

I didn’t have plans to ride Johnny today, but I was finished with Cool and the baby-toting party still wasnt back yet so I pulled him out of the field for Sonj to look at. I figured that I had the time and the help, so I might as well use it!

I was very careful to tack Johnny up using ALL his old stuff. It took a little while to find it all, but almost everything of his I had held on to *just in case.* My goal was to make him feel as much “at home” and mentally comfortable as I could....and it did seem to help. After practicing standing at the mounting block, I had Sonj lead him around for a bit with me on his back until he took a big deep breathe and relaxed, then I took the reins and she slowly wandered away from him. After several laps of walk and changing directions, I quietly closed my leg and asked him to trot. Instead of giving me fireworks like yesterday, he stepped off into a quiet trot. Of course, he’s still lame, but he was WAY less lame today than yesterday! We did a few laps each direction and then called it a day.

I was glad to have an extra set of eyes on the ground because I’m feeling more optimistic today about his recovery outcome than I was yesterday. He actually felt pretty good,  considering.

I have tons of pictures to add to these posts but I must be mentally challenged because I’m having a really hard trying to figure out how to upload them here.....🤷🏻‍♀️ Any help would be appreciated!!!

Peace.Love.Ponies.