It's Friday night, there's a cake in the oven and I'm having a small beer to inspire a bit of blog juice creativity.
I woke up this morning feeling like a complete zombie - even after a coffee it took me five minutes to work out which way to turn the oven dial to make it the right temperature. A walk into town to get some meat and veg helped, but by the time I got to the yard my brain was doing the 'Shall I ride? Naaa-don't ride, manyana, manyana'.
I've done this brain indecision dance many times and now when it happens I generally ride. To paraphrase Mark Rashid - any day when you get to ride a horse is by definition a good day.
And I was glad I did. Rodney was game for a bit of schooling (or seemed to be) so we set to it. I warmed up with slightly longer stirrup leathers and then took them away altogether to try and work on my own self carriage.
I'm quite tall and Rodney is about 15hh so sometimes I ride too short and lose my balance. I could feel the difference between my right hip and left today - right is our better rein, but there were some good moments.
I'm trying to find that happy spot where I'm just setting him up well and letting him take it from there without being too absent and letting things drop to bits. We had some better canter strides but when it's too fast I still bounce so I have to work, work, work at keeping a supporting contact otherwise he bools off and it's messy.
It was a very absorbing ride and the exercise did me good I think. Cady was keen to say hello and I bought her in for a mouthful of feed, not that she needs it. We had some serious neck scratching bonding on Thursday after a couple of weeks of being a bit cool with each other.
I don't like to personify the horses but I definitely feel that me and her have a love/hate thing going on...Anyway, it's all love at the moment and that makes me very happy.
Before I sign off to go and check the cake, here's a couple of pics of The Beautifuls.
Happy horsing everyone! x
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