Finally Friday!

Well, posts this week may have been heavy on photos and light on content, but they DID exist! I'm gonna count that as a win. Despite the week getting off to a crappy start weather-wise with all the rain on Monday, I did ride every other day this week! You already saw some snaps from Tuesday's ride in my WW, and Ruby was LIT. For about the last month (really ever since our first lesson) she's been really, really, really suspiciously chill and quiet. Not that she's usually "bad" per se, but she does have a tendency to get a little amped up after we trot or canter and occasionally that just devolves in her trying to speed along as fast as possible and me sitting up there pulling on her, which is completely useless. I got some really good tools to work on that in my lessons, and of course she hasn't really been doing it at all, so I got a bit complacent. I don't know if it was the changing temps this week or what, but Wednesday I had a runaway freight train on my hands. 

The photo doesn't do a great job of showing it but she was DRENCHED in sweat. I could feel the heat on my legs through the saddle flaps!

DH came out to watch me ride and took some videos, and they are.... well, a hot mess express might be putting it mildly, lol. At one point I asked her to canter and legs were just flailing EVERY DIRECTION. She started pogo sticking and swapping leads and my phone literally flew out of my pocket across the sand. He thought it was super entertaining, I was less amused. I really hope that's not the horse that shows up at my lesson tomorrow!

zoom zoom 

Wednesday night my mom came over, and like you saw yesterday, I tossed her up on Ruby while I worked Cinna in the Equibands. My mom was super interested in both those and the Equisense, so we had a long conversation about all the fun toys I have, lol. At one point she asked me "where do you FIND all these weird things?!" and I was like mom where do I find anything weird, THE INTERNET. Hahahaha. She should know that, since she's the one who bought me an Equicube for Christmas!

Walking on the buckle - she needs a fresh roach! Or maybe I'll let it grow out again to dressage braid length.... Hmmm decisions decisions!

Yesterday my farrier was coming out, so I worked from home (gahhhhh every time I get to do this now I realize HOW MUCH I MISS IT and how much more productive I am working here, sigh). That let me sneak in an early morning ride on Ruby, and it was bliss. I wanted to be sure we didn't have a reversion to Wednesday's freight train, so I tossed on the bareback pad and we worked for a really, really long time at the walk. She was really good, and very tuned in to my seat. It's hard for me to trot her for long in the bareback pad (she's bouncy, I'm bad at sitting the trot, so we just don't very much lol), but she was also SUPER in the right lead canter. She wanted to zoom off in the left lead, but I didn't let her convince me to get into a pulling match, I just focused on slowing her down with half halts, and she finally snorted away some of the tension and turned back into the nice, rideable horse I know she is. So then she got a nice bareback meander in the yard!

The sun was lighting up her neck in a really beautiful way. 

Bareback meander!

Afterwards I rode her into the barn aisle and untacked her loose in the aisle. She's a good egg lol.
 

Trigger's hoof is also almost entirely grown out! My farrier bevaled the area slightly, but it looks pretty normal at first glance. 

Looking pretty normal from the bottom too! (well, normal for him anyway). 

Mostly I'm looking forward to a long weekend -- we have some impromptu guests coming into town and so my BFF is tagging along to my lesson tomorrow and I sincerely hope she will take better photos than DH, LOL. Then we'll probably spend Sunday and Monday on the lake! I hope all have lovely plans for the long weekend!