My horse, the goof!

So this may be a record- two posts in one day!  But I am serious about trying to be more diligent with entries, and knowing that I have a very busy day tomorrow, I thought it would be best to write tonight. 

I was not able to get out to the barn yesterday as it was my brother's birthday and we had a family dinner for him (for which I made an amazing blackberry lime cheesecake with blackberry lime curd- YUM!) so J had the day off.  I got to the barn today to find that the horses had been inside their stalls yesterday and today due to the terrible storms that have been moving through the area, resulting in flooded pastures and paddocks.  My wonderful barn owner and amazing barn help are very good about getting the horses turned out in the indoor, but that also depends on other rider's schedules as well.  And my horse getting turned out in the indoor is just not the same- he can be much more distracted when he hasn't gotten the mental release of being outside all day.

So today was decent weather and despite a small pond in one portion of the outdoor arena, I knew I wanted to get J outside and even take advantage of the water- as many times we have to plop through water in the show ring.  I got J groomed up, which was no easy task as he has been inside the past couple days and he loves to use his manure has his pillow and mattress!  I took him straight outside, mounted off a big rock (isn't that what everyone uses as a mounting block, LOL!) and started to walk him around the outdoor.  He was relaxed at first, then seemed to realize that 1) he was outside for the first time in days and 2) he was the only horse out there.  He had a couple little temper tantrums, seemingly wanting to burst out the seams and let some hooves fly and after a little while of this, I decided that, after working a couple good circles, I would take him into the indoor to burn off that excess energy.  So we made our way inside and I worked him pretty hard, working our corners, 10 meter voltes into shoulder-in, leg yields and a couple of half passes.  Also did a few lengthenings in the trot and canter, which were pretty decent.  I tried to be sure that he was stretching his neck throughout his work and I was not letting him just sit on the bit.  I would throw in random voltes to try to vary the work and not let him get too complacent in whatever we were doing.  After working for a while in the indoor, we  made our way back to the outdoor, as I was not going to let him off that easy.  So back out we went and he tried to be distracted a couple of times, but I was quick to get him back and we worked on transitions while staying soft and supple in the bridle.  He did pretty well and I was happy with how our training session ended.

We have a lesson scheduled tomorrow evening, so hopefully it won't be cancelled by either party and Shelley and I can get some good work done!