I ignored all the chores waiting for me at home and stole a few minutes of the day yesterday to go ride my pony. Since I got sick I haven't ridden - so it's been over a week. Too long! And the weather will be turning nastier soon; I need to take advantage of sunny, (relatively) warm days like yesterday.
Zoe was still wearing her Halloween costume - brown horse. It took a while to get the thankfully-dry-mud off of her and to untangle a big snarl in her mane. While doing all of this, she decided that there were lots of things to spook at in the barnyard: the guy mucking stalls, cats, dogs, cars driving by, etc. I had no idea there were so many things at our barn that would eat a horse!
So before I could even consider riding her, we had to spend some time in the round pen. I led her in, released her lead rope and stood quietly in the center of the ring...while she proceeded to tear around the circle like a crazy horse, tail standing straight up in the air. After 6 or 7 minutes of this, she decided she was done and wanted to stop. Now we began to work (not that she wanted to!). Another 10 minutes of trotting circles finally helped her find her brain and recognize that she had a job to do. Silly pony!
By this time, I was out of time so my ride was necessarily short. (Darn those commitments at home!) I was only able to squeeze in 10 minutes, but at least we were able to practice a bit. We have gotten much smoother at stopping and standing at the mounting block while I got in the saddle was almost perfect. I was so happy. :)
