Progress

Back to back rides on Coolie yesterday and today. Hubs was home early which gave me an opportunity to ride today that I probably wouldn’t have had otherwise. The forecast is also calling for rain the next few days as Hurricane Florence makes its way to our state (which is crazy in itself because I live in OHIO) so I figured that I had better take any chance that I had to get some ride time in on Coolie. Not only does my sanity require adequate horse time, but I’m also working really hard at getting his mind and body healthy. The only way to fix his feet is to ride in his pads and stimulate the parts of his feet that he normally wouldn’t use. The only way to fix his brain for him to realize that riding doesn’t cause pain. And the only way to fix his body is for his brain to stop going into overload and shutting down when he thinks he can’t do something because he’s sore. So really, it all comes back to riding. The more pain free, positive riding experiences we can have, the sooner he can begin to heal.

It was already starting to sprinkle rain drops so I quickly got Cool saddled and booted and headed out to the arena. My plan today was to give Cool a break from going ‘round and ‘round in circles and scatter some poles around the arena to ride like a “jump course.” I really am trying to get better about not boring him to death with “arena work” because it seems like he really gets sour of flatting all the time. Since he’s a pain in the ass about walking with me while I set poles, I tied the reins of his hackamore up over his head and let him trim the grass on the edge of the ring while I went to work setting. I used my four freshly (spray)painted jumper poles and set up a single on the quarter line, a diagonal one stride and a diagonal single. My ring is fairly small, so it’s pretty hard to set poles at much more than three/four strides or so in any given direction. I figured that today I would keep the poles all fairly close towards the center of the ring and give Cool lots of room to turn and make his approach since I was just planning on trotting this “course” today anyway.

We warmed up fairly quickly since Cool had just come in from turnout and therefore was already pretty loose at the walk. He was a little behind my leg to start but felt sound, and once he realized that we were doing pole work he brightened right up and off he went! We trotted a few single poles to start off and then I put together a little course both directions. As soon as he realized that we were turning these single poles into something that resembled a jump course, Cool was READY to go! He ended up rushing at a couple of the poles and taking a little jump over them to land in canter on the backside. Some people might think that undesirable in a horse but I was pleased as hell that Cool was feeling good enough and happy enough that he WANTED to jump and canter. I worked very hard on keeping with the rhythm of his trot on approach and just going with whatever decision he made, whether it be trot or canter on the backside. This required that I kept my leg soft and that I stayed down in my heel - something that I’ve really been sucking with as of late. Today was better though, so I’m pleased with that! I also made sure to keep my hand low and forward during our ride. I have a terrible habit of raising my hand and pulling a couple strides out. It’s a habit that’s literlly plagued me my whole life but seems exponentially worse when I ride Cool. Overall though, I was really pleased with our ride and after a couple little “courses” and a nice stretchy trot I called it a day and took Cool for a walk over to the apple tree to pick out his post-workout treat 😂 Stupid I know, but it gets him out of the arena and keeps him happy so I’m ok with it. I like to think of it as our little bonding time after working.

So far, the rain has held off so I’ll be headed back outside shortly (the baby is napping YAY) to let the ponies back outside to stretch and walk and enjoy the (MUCH) cooler temps today.

The Coolie today after his rockstar ride 

Until next time!

Peace.Love.Ponies.