change o' plans

I about cried when I walked into the barn ready to work and ride four days in a row and found a note telling me to not ride. "Rolinette is stiffer."

It is not that I doubt she is more stiff. It is that I think the very thing that will be most helpful is more work and more fitness. A vet will examine her for soundness later in the week, which mostly means flexion tests and maybe ex-rays. It is expected that she will show hock lameness and get her hocks injected. And she very well may. But her back isn't sore and hock and back problems almost always go together.

I don't know . . . It isn't that I doubt that she is sore, or that I wouldn't if it were within my power mitigate that soreness with injections or anything else that worked. I don't want her to hurt, and I certainly don't want to hurt her.

Every now and again "you need your own damn horse" (to do with as you please and quite possibly show what I can do) screams at me. But it also screams at me that I don't have the financial resources to do any of the stuff I get to do now, even if I had my own horse. Whatever I get to do is a gift, and everything that I don't get to do is my own damn fault. And there ya go; that's where I live.

It has been a real honor and privilege to get to largely be responsible for Rolinette for this time. It is very different from just catching a ride on whoever you can and it has done wonders for my confidence in myself. I hope we get to keep going but if we don't, she's still the most beautiful and deep horse ever.

So today I did get to ride Bart. It has been a long time since I've been on him. Rolinette's son but very different. First, lots more movement, but mostly waaaay heavier. Not a light horse in any way whatsoever. So heavy in the hands that I, well, I was very much wanting a lesson because I felt like I could not see what he looked like. I didn't do a whole heck of a lot with him. Leg yields at walk (he's also a much more lateral horse than Rol). Trot trying to ask him to be forward, circles, serpentines, transitions. He was very willing. He very willingly picked up canter, almost too willingly, like doing it on cue instead of from aids. But I did not get a single decent downward transition from canter.

Cathy and I were riding together so we started playing with riding pas de deux. Couldn't be on two more different horses! We did some side by side and some mirror, at trot and walk, having fun. The we walked the hill once . . . or Bart and I walk while Star cantered up!