Naughtie is home

Thursday, March 26, 2009

X is seriously in the doghouse after Saturday. Vicky tacked him up to take a lunge lesson, she's been riding him on the lunge for the past few weeks so this was nothing new. Well Katie was out wetting down the arena, it was starting to get too dusty, especially for Miss. So we're lunging, Vicky's doing pretty well. Then Katie goes and stretches the hose across the arena and then walks it back on itself. It's new hose, still wants to roll up and the hose twists up on itself. Katie gives it a good hard yank to unkink, RIGHT in front of my horse. X of course looked at and went "OH MY GOD! It's going to EAT me!" And jumped straight up in the air. Apparently he's been watching Bugsy, because he then snapped his back and turned it into a nice buck. Vicky got very defensive, hunched her shoulders, leaned forward and drew her knees up. So of course she went flying. Luckily for her, the new arena footing is still pretty clean and it's softer. Vicky was ok, and eventually I was able to get her up and back on the horse. We walked around a little bit and then she went out on a trail ride on Fanny with Henry and Katie. X got a saddle change and me on him for about an hour. We walked and walked and walked. I made him walk over the scary hose and onto the scary wet sand and past the scary windows. And then I made him stand quietly. He hates that part. Now that's it's getting warmer he needs to go back to work. He has gotten much too lazy this winter and thinks he can get away with whatever he wants.

Luckily I had a good ride on Miss in the afternoon to make up for my bad pony. I rode with Astrid and Kaye, Bonnie set up a small crossbar after three trot poles for us. I have to say I really hate jumping that mare over small fences. She has so much jump, she doesn't really know what to do with herself over a little fence. Plus she knows she can just step over them so she get easily distracted. But we jumped the little crossbar a few times and then Bonnie made it a slightly bigger little crossbar and we did that a few times. Then Bonnie added a pole behind to turn it into an oxer (about 2'3") Now we're talking. Miss is so much easier to ride over the bigger fences. And she really enjoys it, you can feel the change in her. Her ears are up and her eyes are bright and she just wants to go. We jumped that maybe 4 or 5 times, really working on keeping my leg on her and anchoring my weight in my heels. Then Bonnie added the blue barrel under the jump, didn't change the height at all, just filled it in a little. That's when Astrid bowed out of the lesson. She does really good and then some days her nerves just get the better of her. We jumped the barrel a few time and then Bonnie raised the back bar up a few inches (2'6") Miss really had fun with that. She is so amazing over fences, she just snaps her knees right up to her chin and she's 4 feet off the ground without even trying. So good lesson, Miss and I both had fun, and I was pleased with the progress we made on my position.

Sunday, no barn as I had agreed to help Aunt Sandy at A Chocolate Sunday. Sara was supposed to be helping as well, but she had a baton competition so she didn't go. My mom ended up coming to help in her place. We got put at a table handing out this Dagoba Organic Chocolate stuff. It was annoying because everyone was asking us about the stuff and we had no clue what it was. Plus it was all these weird flavors, like lavender, seeds (with Hemp!), roseberry, and super fruits. But Aunt Sandy asked me to help out and since she doesn't ask for things all that often I feel like I have too. At least I got some good chocolate out of it, including Rosalinds.

While I was at the country club pushing organic chocolate bars, Bonnie and Jim were driving up to New York to pick up Naughtie. Almost 2 years ago Margaret, Bugsy's former owner, had taken Naughtie to sell. Well she didn't sell and Margaret isn't really teaching now so Naughtie came home to us. She knew were she was right away and I'd like to think that she remembered me. Anyway can't wait to ride her again next week.

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