Check one, two.

Today marks one full week of horse ownership. You would think that after waiting so long for a horse of my own I would have been eager to get out to see him every single day... but no. I've been a nervous nelly... After watching a friend go through a very tough situation with a horse she had on trial (long story short he mysteriously punctured his stifle joint and had a 50/50 chance of recovering) at our barn, I felt the need to insure Riley before I did anything with him. Yes, it's probably a little bit paranoid of me, but I'm hopefully going to have him for a long time, and I'd rather get this all squared away now than deal with heartache later. I called 6 places to get comparable quotes and finally settled on a plan that met all my needs and was not crazy expensive.

Finally Saturday (after watching Rolex XC) I drove out to see him. I brought Kiki's old bridle to see if it might work for him (mostly because it has a full cheek). I don't know why, but I was really, really nervous. Has anyone else experienced this new-horse syndrome? I was so nervous that I literally forgot how to tack him up for a minute and got very tunnel-visioned. He was being quite naughty as he and his pasture mates had been careening around just before I arrived, and I pulled him at feeeding time. He's a very easy going horse 95% of the time, but he's a bit of an ass when there's food involved, so he was very squirrely for grooming and tacking. I had decided after our excitement at the PPE that we need to install proper lunging technique and it seemed like the perfect day to work out some kinks. He seems to understand lunging in a very basic way, but it was clear that he didn't understand cues, so we spent a little while working on simple transitions and proper behavior on the lunge. One he was warmed up a little I put a neck stretcher on him (on the easiest possible setting) to help him work on softening at the poll. He spent most of the time sort of fighting against it, but eventually relaxed and softened quite nicely. Seeing as he's just coming into work and he's still young, I only want to incorporate a few minutes of "hard" work at a time, so he doesn't get burned or or resentful. He definitely wanted to figure out how to answer what I was asking, and that made me very happy. I hopped on (with Kiki's bridle -- which fit like a glove and looked quite cute on him) and a different saddle to try. It's a Pessoa close contact saddle I'm borrowing (more on this later). We worked on more transitions on the flat in both directions and also worked on getting him to focus on me and not the other horse in the arena. He needs so much work on developing contact and bending, so I'm trying to mix up his work load to keep him forward and happy. I think in a few weeks, I'll be able to come up with a list of goals for us to work toward, but for now his rides are quite basic. The weather was beautiful all weekend and I was eager to go somewhere for another conditioning ride. My friend and I headed over to The Laurels Preserve which is essentially miles and miles of protected land with trail and open fields to ride in. There was a competitive trail ride going on (we passed a bunch of lovely looking horses along the way) which added a fun element to our ride since we were often going in the opposite direction of them.

Cheeky pony doesn't want to share his hay

Riley started off a little looky and curious. We parked the trail down the road from the entrance, and we hopped on and had to walk along the road to get there. He was happy enough to follow his buddy, but definitely keeping an eye on the woolly donkeys and cows along the way. Once we got into the trail system he settled a bit. I have to remember to wrap my legs around him so he knows I'm there and that everything is fine. He seems to relax with that support. About 10 minutes into the ride we found a fun log to jump and we popped over it a few times with a small audience of couple and their two well-behaved dogs. E suggested I take Riley over to a stream to cross and come back, but he was not thrilled about this option. We had a bit of a discussion and I pulled him away to re-approach. We came back and he got very wiggly, and climbed up the bank to the right of the opening, I wasn't really sure what he was going to do once we were up there, and he wiggled around some more, leapt left and...


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I fell off.

Luckily, I rolled mid air and landed on my shoulder a little but my hip/back took the brunt of the fall on a well-placed rock. I was inches from the water (which I was grateful for) and Riley didn't take off. Ouch. I got back on, re-approached defensively and we went in without drama. It was odd being that he's never had a problem with water before, but I think leaving his buddy and this being a pretty big stream made him question whether or not he really wanted to go. Needless to say, I'm eager to get him out XC schooling, since he's going to need to learn to walk, trot, and canter through water without a buddy! So, with dirt in my teeth (truly making me feel like an eventer) we continued on our ride. We were able to get in some really nice trot sets over gradual hilly terrain. We walked up and down most of the steeper hills for fitness and we found a really nice huge field to get some canter/gallops in. E was riding her 5 year old TB who thinks he knows best, and he was none too pleased with having to stay at Riley's speed. The first time, we cantered side by side up the hill, then let them out to a gallop at the top all the way across the field. The second time I went first, this time really driving him up the hill, and let him really go at the top (I got into a gallop position, tucked my fingers into the yoke and clucked him on), behind us E's horse just about lost his mind having to wait, and bucked in place until he relaxed and she let him go, I could hear them coming up behind us as I urged Riley on, they caught up with us and we had a nice gallop across the field. Having two very different horses, we tried to work on boosting their confidence in different ways. E's horse was VERY upset about not leading, so she forced him to walk side-by-side with us. Riley got very antsy and annoying standing still at various points, so we worked on that intermittently throughout the ride. We got in another nice slightly downhill trot set and walked the rest of the way home. Once they figured out where they were, they happily marched along the path back to the entrance. We rode for about 2 hours and the horses we quite tired by the time we got back to the trailer.

Petey is curious, and Riley says, "mmmmm, hay"

Trailer buds.

I want to get him out as much as possible to work on his fitness, I think it's terrific for his brain to trailer to new places and have it not be a big deal whatsoever. There's a nice field behind the barn with hills that I can walk over to when we can't trailer somewhere. His coat still looks awful, it's in a weird shedding/curly/gross stage, but I am starting to see a cute pony under there (and he's getting a daily supplement, I think Omega Shine). He's going to be lovely in a month or two. Ps. While he didn't object the the Pessoa, and it felt fine on the flat and conditioning work, it's not a great saddle for me to jump in. I felt really out of balance even just over a little log, and I think it's partially to blame for me coming off so easily (stiff, slippery leather and a close contact saddle), but it's ours to borrow for now, so we'll make it work until we can get something better for both of us.