Hacking Day

I'm a moderately terrible person.  Partially because I'm doing a crappy job of uploading my pictures and videos from the Mountain Trail weekend, but more so because I blew off my favorite charitable organization in the name of riding my horse.

Usually I take my commitments seriously.  And I adore the women's shelter that I work with.  BUT I just couldn't bear the the thought of a board meeting while 70 degree sunshine and an empty barn called my name.  Judge me as you will, but I don't regret it for a second.

Prairie was a great mare.  I have my working theory that she's more scatter brained/loopier when I work her in the evenings around dinner time.  That seems to be when she sees monsters in the woods and scampers around and makes a ruckus.  But last night, she did none of those things.

Maybe it was the fact that when I got to the barn she was dozing in her stall, or maybe it was the warmth of the day or maybe it was the confidence she got from her big adventure (or maybe she's just exhausted?) but she was a very, very good girl even for a 5:30 ride.

(total amateur-non-supermom photo)

I didn't want to work hard.  Mostly my goal was just to see how she was feeling after a weekend couped up in a stall and tackling scary obstacles. 

Before I got on I walked her around the ring working on our groundwork from Mountain Trail and even asking her to climb over a few baby jumps and scary things in the corner.  She was braver than she has been which I took for a good sign forgoing a lunge to just hop right on.

She was a bit stiff, but soft and willing.  Stiffer to the right than left (weird?) but stayed light in my hands and light off my leg.  We trotted around in big loopy things for about 20 minutes played with some canter departs, then during a walk break I started playing with some lateral work trying to ask for leg yields and such without any contact on the reins.

Mare gets bonus points for mostly figuring it out and moving over easily.  Then I picked her back up, did a few shoulder-in's and leg yields at the trot and called it a day.

I even busted out the old video camera to set it up.  I need to work on my camera angle, but here's a short clip of us trotting.  You can see we're on the forehand but all in all, that's a relaxed mare! (yay!).

You can see me play with stretching her a bit, but mostly we're just looping around... I get mesmerized watching her move.  (me? less so... why can't I sit up!?)