Dakota works on zooming less

Dakota really likes to go ZOOM on the lunge. He's in a big hurry to get somewhere. At the clinic, Suzanne encouraged me to work with him on carrying power rather than running. It has taken hundreds of half halts, but he's starting to get the idea. He has been acting crabby about his D-ring bit lately, so I switched him to a thinnish loose-ring French-link snaffle. We'll see how that goes. Maybe he needs a float.

I think he is just cute as a bug.

Lubbock: Heart of the rainforest

The ponies have been neglected for more than three weeks. At the beginning of September, I was out sick for a week with a mystery illness that caused severe pain and nausea. An ER doctor finally diagnosed me with GERD and accompanying ulcerations in my esophagus and prescribed an anti-inflammatory that kicked in after 48 hours of taking it and finally allowed me to get out of bed and go back to work. I have an endoscopy scheduled in October to see what's going on down there. But at least in the meantime I feel pretty good.

As soon as I started feeling better, it started to rain. And rain. And rain. In Lubbock. It's a semi-arid climate, and they've been in a drought forever. Three straight weeks of rain isn't really something you expect around here. One night this is what the freeway near the university looked like:

And most days this is what the road to the barn looked like:

Even when I could make it to the barn, the arena was partly underwater and completely soggy. And so, the ponies have been having a vacation up until today. Even today, we ended up driving along the edge of an adjacent field to avoid some remaining lakes on the barn road. But at least the arena was 2/3 dry.

The kids were great! Clair is often very, very busy when tacking up, and today I expected a frenzy of activity, but she was actually quite good. She acted up only once on the lunge and was otherwise very ladyike. She has some bot eggs on her legs, so I picked up a pumice stone on the way home today and will attack them tomorrow. Dakota was zoomy on the lunge. He cantered and cantered and cantered. No bucking or rearing, though, which surprised me. I kept the Pessoa long on both horses so they could work in a training level frame, since they'd been sitting around so long. I'm so glad to be getting back to work with them!

Clair Mare in the Pessoa

Forgot to post video of Clair's first time in the Pessoa yesterday. Here it is!

Clair Mare, Dakota, and the Pessoa

I introduced Clair Mare and Dakota to the Pessoa system this morning. They both did fabulously! Clair was slightly irked in the canter, with lots of tail flipping, but I like how she moved in it. Dakota had two small tantrums and was rather zoomy, but for a first try I was proud of him.







I'm hoping to find someone to lease Dakota at least part time. If you're in the Lubbock area and interested, please take a look at the Dreamhorse ad. He's a fun and uncomplicated guy!

I had a great ride on Clair! I was wearing a new pair of breeches that are officially the worst pair of breeches I've ever owned. I might as well have been wearing Teflon for all the grip the full seat gave me. So she's definitely not very forward, and our biggest bugaboo is her tendency to want to duck behind the bit -- on full display here. There's always a lot to work on. We did a little leg yield, some shoulder in and travers, and a tiny bit of half pass at the end. The final bit is half pass out of the corner, straighten to a few strides of diagonal, and then a few more strides of half pass. I am so proud of her!



Update 8/18: Oops, I see the video of me on Clair didn't upload fully. Will fix tonight! Second update 8/18: Fixed!