Color Coordinated

This week I realized how color coordinated I’ve become over time. I obviously gravitate to certain colors…

Mr. P’s saddle rack – blue and gray anyone?

Mr P’s ensemble of Navy Ogilvy profile pad, Ogilvy navy half pad, and Antares saddle

Stampy showing off a Grey Ogilvy profile pad and a black Ogilvy half pad with his Butet

And this is what happens when you give your friend your phone to take pictures and don’t pay attention…

Hi Christie!

Mikey ear shot

On to some recent activities with the boys.

Mr. P and I have been having some great rides with spurs engaged. He always does a little “oh my god she has spurs on” freakout at the beginning of our trot work (involved attempting to canter and hop around while pulling at the bit), but after that he settles in and stays responsive and trucks around. I’ve been adding in some leg yield work, which he obviously learned to do better while he was out of my care! He is really responsive to my lateral questions and I have a lot of fun with it. I think he did trail and some other western classes when he was gone that got this installed.

Ready to go mow some grass

Friday night P and I even jumped an X a few times, which was fun. He always gets excited and picks up the canter a couple of strides out and does what he wants to the fence which is fine with me. At 25 he can do what is easiest for him while enjoying something he loves to do.

Yesterday it rained while the boys were outside, so P had a good time getting dirty.

Stampede has been focusing on responding to my leg without snarking about it at the canter. In my Tuesday night lesson he still frustrated me down the first line and added a half stride, but then I got to business and made him get moving. His lack of response Tuesday caused a ride in the ring on Thursday along with the dressage whip and lots of practice between using a regular canter and big canter and back again. I had it to the point where when I cantered next to the lines I would have been going too forward, so that was pretty good.

Handsome face

I probably should have kept the dressage whip for my Saturday lesson, but I came out with a short bat. This caused a few more discussions about pace on the flat than I really wanted, but he was nice and focused otherwise. We warmed up over a short pattern of single fences and it was pretty blah. I was off pace yet again so the distances weren’t coming up very nice. When I came back to do my course I put my game face on and got a pace faster than I needed before settling it down to the first single. Got the strides in each line without much fuss, and was even a bit close out of the last line coming home. Since the horse show is coming I didn’t want to overdo it so we quit there. The plan is to do a flat lesson Tuesday, school for the show Thursday, lunge Friday, then show Saturday and Sunday!

Today I’m going to ride Mr. P, then he will have some small visitors to give pony rides to. Stampede will have a lunge session which will hopefully be quick and easy.