Rotations

10:56 AM
By Beka Burke
12 Comments

Hubs accompanied me to the barn last night. We'd had a nice date day which included things like spotting each other at the gym (squats and bench press), burying the last of the concrete that took forever to dry (it was quick-set!), seeing the Mortal Instruments (I enjoyed, he tolerated) in my riding britches, going to the barn and then to bliss out on the patio at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants.

D brought his plane to the barn to fly while I rode. Did I mention that? D flies those little plane thingies. He needs a lot of space in which to do it, so I was telling him which pasture was currently empty. Lo and behold, there are horses in the previously empty pasture. And no horses in Archie's pasture. I quickly found the Kid in the pasture that the mares were previously in. HOLY PASTURE MAINTENANCE, BATMAN! Not something I've had the joy of experiencing in quite a while.

New pasture.

I wish I'd taken a photo of him with his little yellow plane in an empty pasture.

Archie (back) with a buddy and a bird.

Before I grabbed the Archer out of his new pasture, I set up a couple of ground poles in the ring. I thought I spaced them far enough apart (oh, no, not really).

We started out with a walking warm-up, just about ten minutes. Then I asked for trot and canter, both asking him to move more forward. I kept nudging with my right heel and I feel like we've made improvements, but I'll know for sure when I have my next lesson on Wednesday. We trotted in a circle tracking left over the ground poles and then I asked him to canter them.

I want to admit something here.

I've never really hidden the fact that cantering my completely sane Thoroughbred scares the ever-living shit out of me. The times that we'd cantered a ground pole at the Old Barn were few and far between. So this was a Big Deal that I treated as No Big Fucking Deal. And, tracking left, we had absolutely no probs.

I repeated the exercise to the right and asked D to record. Love my husband! I knew that we were still falling in tracking right, even with my heel in his side. I also knew that every.single.time we'd cantered those ground poles at the Old Barn, I'd done it on the left lead. But the Kid needs to build muscle, improve balance, and these little exercises are supposed to help.

Post ride sweats. Also, have I mentioned that my bay is now a blond?

Hair loss.

I've noticed that the Archer has lost some hair on his rump and flank. It's not crusty and doesn't appear to be a fungal issue. The Horse informs me that this can be due to excessive sweating (NO COMPLAINTS!) and the subsequent moisture causing the hair follicle to release hair. Or something with the sweaty salt crystals. Either way, when this heat abates, his hair should come back. We've been bathing weekly with a hydrating/conditioning shampoo, so I'll probably keep doing that.