Amidst Beach Ball Polo

Tuesday I actually made it to the barn before it got dark! And it looks like I'll be getting there around the same time today with everyone off for Veteran's day. No traffic coming into work was amazing. On Tuesday evening, TC was eager to get going. He waited patiently through grooming and tacking up, but he wrenched his head out of his halter and started grabbing for the bit when I went to bridle him.

Some sunset pictures from the past because it's hard to get
media at night

I threw all his longeing stuff on him like a pack mule but still hopped on and rode him up above. He had a hump in his back when I got on, but settled okay as we walked up the hill. He definitely was spooky though, so as I walked by the short side of the covered arena and heard screaming and hooves pounding, I was pretty sure I would be longeing him in the round pen (which is small and has not the greatest footing, so I want to avoid having to do that every day).

As we rounded the turn, I saw three teenagers galloping around in the arena. Two of them had brooms and they were smacking a beach ball around the arena.

And I was on a four year old horse with a hump in his back who hadn't been ridden since Sunday.

But TC really didn't seem to care about it as we walked up and opened the gate, so I decided to give it a go. Best to give him the benefit of the doubt. The barn he was at growing up was a bit chaotic- summer camps, gymkhana, lots of kids. He also puts a lot of faith in other horses- he totally gives in to peer pressure. Since none of those horses seemed concerned, he acted cool.

The girls immediately stopped and asked if it was okay, I told him that it was fine as long as they were careful. They agreed not to smack the ball AT us, which I thought was sweet. I just hoped that they would notice if he started freaking out.

From our old barn

The ride kind of sucked to be honest, but I was SO impressed with how he handled three horses galloping around and a ball being smacked sometimes at him (I expected that) that I just didn't care how bad the ride was. He never once got tense about it, never got away from me, never whinnied, and just generally acted as quiet as Rico would have been. Although I probably would have wanted to join in on Rico. It definitely gave me ideas for more bombproofing for TC.

At one point the barn owner yelled at the girls for disrupting me, but I told her that it was TOTALLY fine, that they had asked me and that I wanted my horse to be real bombproof. The girls laughed and said they'd be happy to bombproof him for me. I might take them up on that! Whatever they want to do while we're in the arena is fine. This horse is going to be fantastic in a warm up arena even with the most nervous ammy! I'm excited to make his sale video, there's going to be some weird stuff in there.

But yah the ride, nothing to write home about. I'm not sure why. His feet are a bit long, so I'm ordering one of these dealies to trim him down before his new trimmer comes out next week. The footing seemed no worse than normal. It WAS a bit cold and he has no blanket (he's not clipped and this is California so he's fine), so maybe that was it. He just had an off day. He just didn't seem to know where any of his legs were or even how many legs he had. He was refusing to bend left, which hasn't happened in a long time. He was breaking constantly from the canter and wasn't on the bit.

Okay not a sunset but this is one of my favorite
winter trees

Whatever, he can have some off days. Obviously if it persists I'll do something about it. I'm just so happy that he was okay with a beach ball flying past him being chased by three screaming teenagers on gymkhana horses.

Today will hopefully be better in terms of dressage. And then I'm done with riding in the dark this week! It actually isn't so bad, we'll see what happens when winter really hits, but this past week he's really turned around. I feel like I've got my horse back!