Day 6 - arena work

At some point I guess I'll stop titling these posts by day.

Finally, good weather for riding.  It's Veteran's Day so no school.  I did work for a couple hours on report cards, but the sunshine made me stop.  A storm is coming, and I can do report cards in the rain.  I have to make hay while the sun is shining!

I need to find someone to ride trail with me.  I had hoped Nancy would do it, but turns out she doesn't ride on trails anymore.  Her horse is 27 years-old so they stick to the arena.  No one else was there today, other than John.  We talked about gophers and such.

I rode G in the arena for almost 45 minutes.  It's kind of boring, but he needs to build up muscles before we can do fun things.  He really responds to my legs and shifts in my body weight.  He also responds to some voice commands, though not perfectly by any means.  Certainly if I shift my body and look in one direction, that's the way he turns.  One of my friends said something about steering with your bellybutton.  It seems to work with him.  We walked, circled, did figure eights, backed, and such.  I trotted him a little and did transitions from trot walk, mostly with voice and body shifts rather than reigning.  I didn't lope this time.  All the reading I've done says if a horse hasn't been ridden in a long time to build up slowly.

After I rode him, I turned him out in the arena to roll.  He is so funny to watch.  He rolls, gets up, shakes, and sneezes.  Then he lays down and does it all again on his other side.  I think he's really starting to like me.

I wish I could give him a bath, but it's too cold.  I always smell much more horsey when I come home from riding him than after riding Danny.  I really think being in a large pen with other horses and room to wander is much better than being in a stall all alone.