Maybe Bobby DID Listen to Me!

The buzz-bomber flies are out.  Thank goodness for fly spray.  Out at Shannon’s I saw two horses out in the pasture doing two-barrel kicks just to shake these nasty flies off their backs.

It is hard to believe it is August down here, usually in August we get our biggest heat, this year it has been rather pleasant in the mornings with nice cool breezes.  This week I did not melt in the saddle!

Bobby looked just as pissed off as usual when…

Mia Kindly Shows Me My Current Limitations

I did not get to ride today, just before Shannon was going to pick me up I started to hear rumblings of thunder, and then it started raining.  I was not especially disappointed, my ride on Bobby last week totally exhausted me because I had to use so many of my muscles so often.  After I got home I wrote last week’s blog, went to sleep for three hours, and it took me a few days to recover completely.  Of course in an ideal world today would…

Bobby Was Tired of Being Good

I approached today’s ride on Bobby much more optimistically than I did last week.  I wasted an optimistic mood.

We seemed to start off all right, at least until the first corner.  From there on Bobby decided to pull every evasion out of his bag of tricks.  First, he took exception to the bit, curling up under whenever he wanted to disobey my aids.  After a minute or so I went in to Shannon and she tightened his cheek pieces a hole to see…

I Say GOOD BOY Many More Times Today

I must confess that I approached my ride on Bobby today with sort of a hopeless feeling.  So I spent the grooming time giving his head a good scratching, hoping that if I made him feel good he might be more cooperative.  Bobby is always such a good boy during grooming and tacking up, he puts up with the indignity of the spray bottle, and he is very good during tacking up.  Shannon has him trained so she can tighten the girth without having…

Did 3-Day Eventing Cross-Country Runs Ruin Bobby?

I got to ride three times this week. 

Mia was an angel, since Debbie had a cantering lesson in the main ring I rode in the other ring with two girls exercising their horses.  Mia was so good, she stayed at the walk each and every time the horses galloped (yes, gallop, not a canter) past her, she did not flinch when the horses were galloping towards her.  Her whole attitude was--“I’m in my thirties, I don’t need to run around any…

Trying Out a New Bit

In the last two weeks I’ve only ridden three times, instead of six times.  Car repairs, seeing my grandson, jury duty for my husband, just one thing after another interfering with my riding, plus I have been working with a new bit.  Of course the universe does not cooperate perfectly when I want to try out a new bit, this is normal for me, at least it happened once before. 

Since the horses I ride had been “voting” for the Mullen mouth snaffle, and then…