Recovery

Hello everybodies, how are you? I am fabulous. I am totally recovered from my adventure of enduring for fifty miles. I had some days off to rest and relax in my field, and some days of doing brain work (you know, cos for losing my brain and embarrassing Cyd). We are practicing my yielding of my butt and my yielding of my shoulders, my backing up out of Cyd's space, my politely walking and trotting on my rope, and practicing trotting on my rope in straight lines without biting Cyd's face off. 

On Friday we went for a short pony ride, that was meant to be just walking, but I felt so good I really wanted to go faster. Cyd let me do a little bit of trotting here and there, but mostly we relaxed on a loose rein just ambling. We thought we spotted a trail and started adventuring on it, but then Cyd remembered the time of year and we turned back. There are some special kinds of gardeners in our woods, and they are busy this time of year, and it might be one of their trails. Those people get REALLY mad if you stumble into their garden. We will explore (carefully) another time, and stick to our main trails for now. On our way back from this pony ride, I decided it wasn't time to be done yet. I walked past the gate to my field, looked back at it, then kept going down the street. Once we got to where my friends live Cyd turned me in there so we could visit Aunty V. The people did chatting for a while, then we went off home again. As a test, Cyd decided to see if I would walk past my gate again. I totally did. At some point on our ride Cyd dropped my purple tailing rope. When it's not attached to my halter it is knotted up and clipped on my saddle. Cyd must have forgotten to clip it and it fell off somewhere. She knew for sure where she last had it though, so was going to look for it on the next ride. Troubles is, someone took it. Normally there's never anybody on my trails, cos for it being private properties, but it's been busy there lately. There's a few people who let their dogs run in the early mornings, and two teenagers on their ATV, and there's been lots more footprints and tire tracks lately, maybe from gardening people, maybe from property purchasers. The forest is for sale, and we're a bit sad that maybe we won't be able to ride there soon. Hey, if you found my purple rope, we would please like it back cos for it being so useful! Thanks! 

I was quite bouncy on Monday while I was waiting for my trimmer lady to come and do my feeties. Cyd didn't get my super excited bouncing on video, but she got some. I was totally good for getting my hoofies done (which shouldn't be surprising anymore). Cyd came back later to do pony riding, this time going further more like a normal ride for me. I was really well behaved, and completely the opposite of my morning field self, so we practiced reinless riding as part of my neck loop training.

 We did walking and trotting and cantering (not all reinless...). I didn't wear my booties cos for Cyd being lazy, so I couldn't do trotting on the road like I wanted in case I hurt my feeties. So I decided to make up for lost time, and show Cyd how recovered I was feeling (it has been over a week after all). I did some of my best cantering. It was definitely my best cantering on a solo ride. I did canter for about a mile and a half with just a couple short trotting strides. Cyd video'd a little bit for you to have a Bugsy ride-along. The only bouncing I did is what you see in the video bit, which was at the end of my cantering. How good is that! I did have some bad moments on my pony ride, but they were greatly outweighed by my good moments. 

I picked a pampas grass snack to carry along

Yesterday I did my groundwork practicing, then got a pony massage. I have some tightness in my butt, which is making tightness in my back, so I go hollow instead of lifting, which will give me backache. I also have some tightness in my neck, but we didn't have time to work on that this day, we'll do more today after my pony ride. We're trying to figure out exactly how to make my saddle perfect for me. It's not quite right yet, but we have some experimenting to do, and now Aunt-E is living back in California we might be able to do more really long rides, since I don't get ouchy on my normal rides. We don't want me ouchy, but if it doesn't happen Cyd can't figure out what to fix. Maybe my butt is the problem, maybe my giant shoulders? Maybe I just need to get stronger, I'm still young after all. Who knows! 

Today we will be practicing doing two loopys, doing my short loop twice instead of going home. I'll try to be good but I'm not making any promises!