The Great Outdoors

With the horse show over, Stampede took a vacation until Thursday. He spent his mornings napping in his pasture and evenings eating grass in the shade of some big trees. Sounds luxurious to me!

Chillin

Thursday Stampede had a lunge in the rig where he tried his best to avoid work by either looking like a camel or ignoring my whip and plodding around. Made for a long lunge session just so we could finish on a good note. Saturday I did a flat lesson on him. He was being pretty good, soft and quiet, until we tried to canter the second direction and he tripped. Beast proceeded to freak out that he tripped then refused to bend in such a manner so as to pick up the correct lead again. So after a brief struggle and reminder that he could indeed pick up his right lead we were rocketing around the ring, finding that big stride that was missing last weekend. Crazy pony.

I just don’t tire of this view

On Monday P and I had an easy hack in the field, he was pretty lazy really. Wednesday we did a bareback ride in the ring since it had just rained. I decided to see what happened if I asked for a flying change, since I haven’t in a while. Actually did a pretty good one right to left, left to right was a little sticky. Not bad for Mr. P during a bareback ride. Friday we did a bunch of field wandering before doing a quick flat focusing on using his butt to get around.

Walking towards the back of the field

Hee hee, donkey ears as he shakes off some bugs

Way back in the hay fields but headed back towards the barn

Saturday night my barn manager texted me to say P had been acting a bit strange and lifting his tail like he was trying to poop and was covered in shavings so she had taken him for a walk and some grass (he ate readily), then given him some banamine as a precaution as well as a wet mash in case he was dehydrated. Husband and I went out to the barn later in the evening to check on the pony and he was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Both him and Stampede were talking to me like crazy, so we took the boys out for a quick grazing excursion.

P knows what he likes

Today I didn’t ride because not only was a hot and humid, but I went tack shopping with a bunch of ladies from the barn. I did make a few purchases, but I will have to get pictures of them and share. Got back and took both boys out for grass after picking their hooves and applying another layer of bug spray. Gave P another wet mash again just to keep him hydrated, but he did drink when I put him back in his stall too.

Nom nom nom