The Lead Fairy Part II

Many of you may remember a few years ago when I called upon the Lead Fairy to come down and pay Johnny a visit, which said fairy so generously did when Johnny suddenly began picking up his right lead canter. The same Lead Fairy must have paid Cool a visit over the past week because

WE DID FLYING LEAD CHANGES TONIGHT!

The left to right change wasn't very clean, but the right to left was almost perfect! I was SO proud of him!! This is the first time that I have ever really asked him for a flying change, lately it has just been simple lead changes. He was awfully fresh tonight, so I can only assume that this helped him a lot, but I was just SO pleased and amazed by him! We did a single canter pole, a 4 stride line of canter poles and then a set of 9ft bounce poles, followed by a small vertical on the diagonal before working on the lead changes. After riding, I fed him TONS of cookies and took him out for grass. After grooming him back off, I linimented his legs and bandaged them all just to be safe. His hind leg swelling has gone back to normal with a little bute, turnout, liniment, ice and stable bandages. I want to make sure that it stays this way! I didn't give Cool any bute today, so I am curious to hack him early tomorrow morning (before heading to the show again to groom) and see how he feels without the bute in his system. I'm wondering if he was so good today because he still had the bute in his system? I'll be curious to see...I think that he really need to see a chiropractor and get his back adjusted.

I didn't get to ride Emmy today, but that's alright because she was a LOON when I rode her the other night. Which is wonderful, because it means that my old lady is still feeling good, but she actually considered bucking me off! (Cool also threw a couple bucks in after jumping today...he was just full of himself!) I'm glad she feels so good, I can't wait to ride them tomorrow morning. I'm really trying to get back in riding shape...I used to ride so well and now my equitation is really terrible...and I haven't jumped anything of a reasonable size in FOREVER.

I keep taking my camera to the barn and then forgetting to use it...I wish I would have gotten a video today :(

Peace.Love.Ponies.