On Schedule

First things first, I finally got my second Ogilvy pad all sorted out (they sent the wrong inserts the first time) and it’s officially in action! This one belongs to Mr. P. 1″ inserts with front lifts for the pony with hollows behind his shoulders.

New Ogilvy, Squee!

This week the boys got back on their usual schedule. Mr. P worked Monday, Wednesday, and Friday this week. Monday night I was running late so P and I did just a quick flat. Wednesday we worked a bit harder, adding in some transition work and focusing on using his hind end more.

Thursday night I got P out of his stall to see this!

Argh, why?!?

Cue sheath cleaning, tail conditioning, and under the tail cleaning to stop P from itching his tail hair off again! So rude.

Hard work being a cute pony

Friday I got on P first and did a quick warm up before my friend Rachel got on to play around with P. Of course P was his usual self and was great for Rachel and it’s always nice to see him go. I always think Phoenix’s trot stride is tiny because of Stampede, but in reality he does have a nice long stride for his size. Don’t ask me why I didn’t take any pictures of the happenings, I failed.

Not sure he wants to work

Tuesday night Stampede and I were both unsure whether we had the energy to do our flat lesson (not sure what his excuse was but I worked out before coming to the barn), but we pulled ourselves together.

Okay, let’s go

Stampede was being a bit of a spook about his scary corner in the west ring since he hadn’t been in there for a while. At one point he got too dramatic and had to go stand by the scary corner for a minute to screw his brain back in. He finished up nicely with some light but powerful canter work around the ring. Not our best or worst work overall.

My Thursday “ride”

Thursday I rushed out to the barn in the afternoon and lunged Stampede in his rig. He was pretty blah about the whole thing and I had to really get after him to use himself and not just plod around. I had to go to the barn early since we were going to a 4th of July event at my grandpa’s senior living place. They had carriage rides so I figured I might as well join in. These horses weren’t as tall as Stampede but man they were beefy!

Stampy and his bug bites

All week Stampede has been getting these bug bites that create little scabs and are itchy. I’ve been drenching him in bug spray but these bugs don’t seem to care what I do.

Tasty hose water

Today I did a lesson on Stampede again. We got done with the flat and I decided to jump a little bit and see how Stampede was feeling. We started off trotting an X and Stampede would put his ears forward for the jump then not want to go forward upon landing. Got after him a bit the next time and he moved out but acted annoyed. Came back and forth again and was really good both ways. Did the full line twice and he marched right down for the strides so we called it a day. I hope we can get Stampede feeling better so I can do more jumping, it’s really my favorite part of ring work!

Looking around instead of grazing as usual

I hope everyone had a fun and safe 4th!