New way to groom....

Today was my second trip to Daniel's new home... He really fills the barn aisle, huh? :-) He has a lot to get used to at the new farm. There are crossties outside his stall (in a shed-row barn with oversize stalls) but he's not too happy in them with his one side exposed. So, I groomed him and tacked him up in the main barn's crossties.

We had our first ride since the trailride in November! Between his abscess and the move, I've been down to groom him, but haven't ridden since November. Today, I tacked him up, and some of the boarders under the previous owners (yeah, we're blending 'families' at the new barn) took the 4-step mounting block down to the indoor. There was a good bit of ice, so they suggested not mounting until we got to the indoor.

I mounted and we followed one of the other boarders (whose horse was used to the indoor) around the indoor so Daniel would see that there were no horse-eating monsters in the corners. He was really a champ about it all! We had a lesson, and I asked Leeandra to go easy on me, since I hadn't ridden in a while and I had a really badly bruised and swollen knee from one of the dogs pulling me down...

We did an obstacle course, with cavalettis, some crossrails, and worked on transitions; mainly walk to trot; trot to halt, etc. Since I hadn't ridden in a while, I was pretty discombobulated and it took me a bit to get my shit together. Daniel's a good boy in spite of me :-)

Considering it was his first time in the indoor, he did great! When my lesson was winding down, my instructor told me that she'd been so busy, she hasn't even had a chance to touch any of her horses... so I suggested that she hop on Daniel (I bought him from her) and ride him while I scooped up the pile he left, as usual, in the FAR end of the arena...

It was amazing to watch her ride him! They were doing canter to halt, halt to canter, half-passes and piaffe.... maybe some day I will (snort - in my freaking dreams!) I'll have to ride more often than once a week!!! :-)