Hates the Rain

Wednesday morning I went out to ride TC and, despite raining all night, it was actually clear! I was really excited, because TC is the actual worst in the rain. I'd take 30 degrees but dry rather than 50 degrees and wet any day.

Shouldn't have hand walked on the ONE day it was
nice this week, why am I so dumb?

I pulled TC out, slogging through the mud and seeing that he'd taken the opportunity to roll in it. Gross. Thanks, buddy. He got to go straight to the wash rack to get his toes sprayed off so I could pick his feet. As I was putting on the bridle, it started to sprinkle rain. That was fine, though I definitely didn't want to get on and do our usual walk around the ranch before our ride. We managed to get into the covered arena as it started really raining.

I was distracted by my phone so I decided to walk him around a couple laps at first. TC spooked at the water coming out of the gutters, a cat that he's seen a lot before, and the same guys who feed him feeding another horse (how dare they). Then, across the barn, some tree trimmers were trimming a tree. TC hated that as well, spooking again and again every time they started up the tree trimmer.

When we made it back to the mounting block, I hopped on, like you do when you're stupid. Normally I would have just put him away, or done ground work and then put him away, but I've been trying to ride him more and get him fitter before his move. I'm so unreasonably nervous that he'll go lame the moment he steps off the trailer at the new barn. I figure if he's fitter, he'll be less likely to go immediately and permanently lame when he moves. So whatever, gotta put in at least a leg stretcher ride.

He spooked at his clothes that he had watched me
put on this bench the whole ride

TC was a ball of nerves and I was not here for it. Normally I'm in a better place mentally when I ride him, but I've been actually having some stupid health things. My stomach is incredibly sensitive, and I ate some weird food and had a weird meal schedule last week. Over last weekend, I had some really scary chest pain and I a little bit thought I might die.

I had resisted going to the ER for a while just because it came and went and I had no other cardiac symptoms. Finally Tuesday I went to the ER and they ruled out heart problems due to me having all the negative predictors of it (like, I'm young, no family history, fit-ish, not overweight, super low blood pressure, and low cholesterol), they said that it was probably esophageal spasms related to my stomach problems. It can be exacerbated by stress, which like, I'm obviously under given the move.

Since then I had/have been on the stupidest fucking diet trying to get my stomach under control. Essentially I eliminated anything and everything that could possibly bother me. So far I can eat white bread (no sourdough), eggs, and apparently greek yogurt. I tried a banana and it was a no go. No fried food, no chocolate, no sugar, no fat, no caffeine, no citrus. I'm also taking out all spices and basically everything good in the world.

So why am I bitching about this? Well, Wednesday morning I was riding my horse and half of my mind was on my chest pain (I had eaten a plain frozen waffle that morning, apparently that's not okay), wondering if I should have insisted that they do an EKG to really look at my heart rather than just making assumptions that I was okay.

Cool

Meanwhile, TC was pretty much just terrified of everything. He scooted non-stop. Just constantly. We'd get done with one scoot, I'd put him back on the aids and stuff him through half a circle, before we'd be scooting off again. We had one really good bolt, where he completely downshifted and ran away with me. I had to be careful bringing him back because he felt like he was going to go up as I slowed him down. Damnit, TC.

I finally put him in the canter because then at least I can sort of channel his scoots into work, and we schooled a bunch of small circles. Between scoots, bucks, and spooks, he really showed me how awesome he's going to be in the future. We got a few circles that were closing in on voltes, where I felt like I could really move him around. The voltes felt like if I half halted and put my outside thigh on, he'd pirouette. Just like in trot when it feels like I could half halt and get passage, this was NOT true, like if I half halted in that canter he'd probably just dump into an ugly trot. But he's giving me really good work, even if he then spooks at the gutter (again) and takes off with me.

I can't wait until it's all brown and ugly again

I'm pretty done with winter. It's been a relatively mild winter, with a nice long break in February, but I'm always super done with winter the moment that winter starts. If winter could just be a week or two of crazy weather that I could just give TC off and I'll just stay inside eating pho and tofu soup, I'd be very much on board with that. I know I can't even talk at all since I live in California and our winters are like some places' summers.

Maybe TC needs to go to rain camp in Seattle or someplace for a few months in the winter to get over his weird shit about rain (and appreciate how mild it actually is here). Or maybe I just need to ride him in the rain constantly. The latter sounds more achievable so I'm off to go ride him in the rain again. This horse WILL be good in all weather types or else...