Who Cares?

I rode Rico this morning before the rain set in. He had two days off in a row so he was REALLY eager to do something. He was less eager when I put on the dressage saddle. Poor horse, he figured his awesome vacation was over. Which it kind of was since he now has a couple of lessons to teach next week and I wanted to get at least one school in on him before he had to do that. I also warned my clients that he might be lame-ish since the last couple of times I rode him he was *okay* but not great.

I got on him and immediately felt like something was missing... it was! My back brace! This was planned, I'm going to begin riding Rico without it and soon hopefully only break it out for the babies or particularly long/difficult rides where I may fatigue.

I've been working really hard with my weighted sit-ups for the past couple of months to get my core ready to ride without a brace and today it felt GREAT. I didn't feel any sort of weakness and I actually think my position was better than it has been in the past with the brace. I got some pictures (but they're way down my editing line so those will come out later) and I think they support my theory.

More show pictures! Forgive me if they're repeats, I don't keep track

Anyway, back to the horse! We walked down the road to the second set of cows and he was excited to be out (it was cold and windy). He was just as enthused to turn around, which seemed odd.

We went into the ring and I wasn't sure what to expect. He had been so uncomfortable at the show that I had really been second-guessing whether he'd be sound enough to even trail ride. After my rides earlier this week I had faith that he'd be okay for trail riding but questioned his use as a lesson horse. But today changed my thoughts.

Such a good pony

HE FELT SO AMAZING! He felt better than he felt at the show for sure, and even better than my last lesson. Mentally he was ON, a little spooky but very forward and easy to collect. Physically he was SUPER sound, only his normal rickety self for the first couple of minutes before the canter. His passage was excellent, piaffe was better than he's been EVER, his pirouettes kind of sucked but who cares.

That's right, WHO CARES?! My new mantra for riding him. He kind of fudged a few transitions and gave me the world's shittiest left pirouette because he wasn't on the bit or in front of my leg... I went to make a correction and then realized, who fucking cares? He'll never be shown at this level again, he'll never be even ridden that much at this level, certainly not by anyone else but me. So who gives a flying fuck if that one pirouette sucked?

He still does all the "easy" stuff that I need him to be good at to teach my students (the lateral work, lead changes, walk-canter and canter-walks, walk pirouettes, etc), but fuck the canter pirouettes and fuck it if his piaffe is moving forward and fuck it if his passage isn't even or elevated enough. Fuck it! Who cares?

The only thing I care about is that jacket and his tail

Rico was super on board with the who cares mantra. He only got corrected for being behind me or not on the bit.

Afterward we wandered a bit and then I went through a bunch of my stuff to set aside a bunch of it to donate to the local handicapped riding school (they love us haha).

His tail is so wild!

I was feeling like I hadn't ridden enough (since it had been two days off of riding for me and then a light-ish dressage school in comparison to what we're used to), so I took the weird gaited horse out.

I love calling him that. If you remember, my dad used to ride when he and my mom were younger and his horse (who lived to be 36) died a couple of years ago. My dad got bit by the riding bug again and my parents bought a horse this July. His name is Riot and he's our very first gaited horse- a Tennessee Walker. I've never ridden a gaited horse so he's teaching me almost as much as I'm teaching him.

I popped on him bareback and took him into the neighbor's pasture. He was great! We did a bunch of running walk all over the pasture and then went up the big hill. He's such a good guy, and kind of hot so he's good for my seat.

Setting up for our first half pass

Rico tentatively teaches his first lesson on Tuesday depending on the footing and how scheduling works out. I'm going to try to get him out one more time between now and then. I'm really excited to see how my kids do on him, the one coming Tuesday has been working SUPER hard recently for not too much reward (difficult young horse) so I'm excited to get her doing some cool stuff.