Tuesday Tidings

Living out 24/7 at this time of year is not like last year - weather is after taking a nasty turn and dropped from our lovely blue skies & sunshine of two weeks ago to gray, windy and very wet in the last two days. Temps have gone from 25C+ to 12C - shock to poor ponio's system and the winter wollies are well and truly after setting in!
So I caved and rugged her last night before turning her back out, her poor little ears were cold and I felt like a bad owner! As it's a blanket with a hood/neck-cover I'm really hoping that she doesn't return to her old tricks and go wandering now that she won't feel the electric current through the rug material!

Thankfully last night I managed to get her in from the field during a dry spell so didn't have to dry her off or anything prior to working her - Bonus! However as mentioned above her little ears were cold and as I hadn't worked her on Monday I decided to edge on the side of caution and lunge her before hopping up in case she was full of beans that come with the cold.
Turns out i needn't have worried - she was a complete angel even though we rode in my least favourite arena; as she is usually very spooky in there due to it being the oldest manege, by the parking lot and under the "buvette" (coffee-warm seating bar-type area...well it has a counter for social events I don't think it is actually stocked with alcohol although not being a drinker myself have never felt the urge to check! ;-) )

So lunged her tacked up in the dressage saddle and once I was happy there would be no antics, up I hopped and we got straight to work. Ah the beauty of lunging first cuts down on warm up time! :p
Loads of transitions and changes of rein later we had managed to get some of our calmest and shaped canter work on our "bad" rein - we had a few sticky strike-offs scattered between our good work, but with all our transition work of late we now calmly come back to trot and then strike off again a few strides later much more controlled and without pulling, speeding up or head tossing which had been known to happen previously - opinionated madam that she is!

To say I was happy with how we worked is an understatement - following up from Sunday's good work to have two ridden sessions go so well with a break in between has me in wonderful spirits! Here's hoping that we can continue in this positive form, although progress will be interrupted by social outings the rest of this week and then a two and a half week travel trip for me leaving Wednesday 3rd of Oct!

Untacked her in the arena and let her loose to roll if she wanted as she was a little sweaty and I didn't want to hose her (a) due to cold, (b) the late hour and (c) rugging afterwards. So she followed me around while I cleaned up her deposits (downside to lazy horse stuffing her face with hay all day in the field and not doing enough moving makes for lots of arena cleaning after workout sessions!) then she did have her roll as i put away her tack.

Nosy McNoserson

She also started her new liver treatment yesterday evening, which fell well as the previous powder was just finished on Monday evening - so there's no lull in treatment. I forgot to take down the name of the granules she's now getting so will have to check that out when I get to the yard next.