Today Dale and Kittee were kind enough to allow Sinwaan and I to catch a ride with them to the fairgrounds, for which I am grateful. It is so hard to ride otherwise in our inclement, cold, rainy or snowy weather as of late. We got there a little early and I had time to tack up before our arena time of 11 am. I didn't use the breastcollar today, and moved my usual girth up a hole on the right side, so when I cinched him up on the left he wouldn't have an area of rubbing/pinching. This seemed to work out well both last week and this week so I think I will continue to do this until he loses his winter coat.
We walked the arena for a good 10 minutes to allow for warm-up and then we did a fair amount of trotting before I asked him to canter, and we worked on transitions. The first couple of times I asked for a canter he acted up, swished his tail and threw up his shoulders but no bucking and I gave him a verbal warning and we continued to work on it. When he would give me a nice couple of strides at the canter I would let him back down to a trot and we did this many different times throughout the two hour time period and I believe we made a little progress. We did some sidepassing in the center of the arena but he goes along so much better one direction than the other so we also used the rail to practice. We did a little backing, and also some tighter circles at the trot, some figure-eights, different manuvers and turns to bend and keep him focused on me. His real challenge is to keep moving ahead when approched from the rear. He really seems to dislike the arena, and dislike being passed. He does not cause any problems for the other horses, he will simply stop where he is until they go by (which as you can imagine happens a lot in an arena!)
There were on average, five horses in the arena at a time today. It seemed to be stallion day as one man brought two stallions. The first stallion was a little antsy, at first I just thought it was a green horse and didn't realize until later he was a stallion. I don't know the breed, he looked like he could have been either a real pretty QH or a plain Arab. He had a nice head. The second stallion was brought in the second hour and he was a black and white paint horse and he was acting up bad on the way to the arena, rearing and spinning around and carrying on. I thought him to be trouble for sure. The owner brought him in and lounged him in the one end and he was bucking and causing all kinds of a ruckus. It seemed to make Sinwaan edgy so I let him stand in a corner and watch the goings-on. After a little while the stallion had his bugs worked out and the man got on and rode him and there was no more trouble. By the end the man had a cup of coffee and no hands on the reins and was guiding the stud around with his knees.
Dale and Kittee had taken their saddles inside to clean them and forgot to put the front cinch back on Dale's saddle so he had brought Misty and no way to ride. So he just hung out and watched and talked to the people. Kittee brought Derby today and a potential buyer was there to check him out, and he rode him and took him away about noon. After that Kittee used her saddle on Misty and rode her, and also rode bareback.
It was a nice day, beautiful outside and the sort of day you long to be on a trail but knowing the footing would likely be slippery. I enjoyed my ride today and felt accomplished. I hope Sinwaan feels the same way :)
It was interesting to note today that the air was calm in Walla Walla yet the wind was roaring at the barn in M-F. I would have thought about riding a trail today UNTIL I got out there and was chilled by the rush of air.
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