So far, so good.

I want to catch everyone up before I jump right into what's going on now. So bear with me, this may get long.

 

This was the first year, that I can recall, where I started off the new year on horseback . I got off of work (my old job) early and ran out to the barn as fast as I could. It was bitter cold and super windy. But I was going to ride no matter what. And I did. Poncho was superb as per usual. However we did only walk and trot because the wind was just horrendous. Although it was not as bad as the following day, Monday. WOW. I only rode for about 10 minutes because the wind literally hurt my face. Even though those two days were mega-short and mega-unproductive in most senses. I did at least get a feel for my new tack. My new saddle a duett allegro, which I got for a steal on e-bay. It is oh so comfy and Poncho loves it. And my new hackamore, thanks to my wonderful parents, because he got fussy with the bit (he's scheduled for a teeth floating in two weeks YAY).

Wednesday I was able to step-up the work some. We were finally able to walk, trot, and canter. We even managed some polework. Unfortunately we did encounter some issues this ride. It all started off kind of rocky. When I went to get him from the field he was running around like a lunatic with his buddy. After wrangling him up he seemed to settle down some. But then at the mounting block he was trying to walk off before I finished getting on. Which he knows is a no-no. He wasn't too forward in his trot when we first started. And then he tried rooting several times, luckily I was able to figure out he was only doing it in relation to what Midnite was doing. To wake him up a bit we went over some poles a couple of times. Then we cantered only on his left lead though. He was superb in the canter. He was nice and forward it was a big change from just a few weeks ago. After the nice canter we got some wonderful trot work in afterwards. I was super pleased with him come the end of the ride. Then Midnite got some attitude with mom. She was not happy to be worked and made well known. She was attempting to bolt, balk, and just in general being bratty. Mom got her to work out of it but it was not a fun workout.

Saturday we did some work ring work. We worked on our canter a bit more. On his right lead he needed a bit of work. He was a bit sluggish on it and he kept trying to drift in. After a couple of attempts though he worked out of it and was offering up some nice work. On his left lead he was superb, naturally. We briefly did some polework, not much though.  And he only rooted a few times - much improved from the last ride.

Sunday we hacked out in the pond field. It was a bit frozen out there so we only trotted briefly. Mainly we spent our time just enjoying the scenery.

Wednesday started off pretty rocky. I'll start off by prefacing on Sunday our Barn Manager accidentally opened a garage door right in front of our horses freaking them out - Midnite got loose. So everyone was fine until they weren't first Midnite busted her lead rope and tried to run. Mom got her back and then Poncho split his halter in half and tried to run. I luckily was able to cling onto him and the saddle to prevent even more disaster. Once we got them wrangled up again and got out to the wring things improved dramatically. Poncho was trotting super forward and lovely. We did lots of pole work. Mainly going over poles that we placed in between the standards (he's afraid of them). The first time over we did this odd hoppity kind of maneuver.  Second time around he was a champ. We did that several times and then I asked for a canter. Holy Moly, we flew sideways about half a stride away from the ground pole. So he jumped it and then looks back like what the heck just happened. haha. So we re-did the canter and got a successful one. But before we could do much more work it started raining so we headed in. Midnite did a lot of pole work too. She had a different course to maneuver through though I think she did it quite well. We got their blankets on and then headed to the tack store to replace the massacred halters.