This week I rode both Hudson and Starlight each evening. Starlight is in training, so our rides involve work. I'm using a flattish spot in our hay field as an arena, and during our latest ride, I ran her through some of the circles and other movements that we practiced in the dressage clinic with Fred Kappler, last weekend.
She is a super smart pony, and I could tell she recognized the work. She also gave me incredibly good canter departs, letting me know that she has learned the cues we practiced in the clinic and on previous rides around our property.
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| 'Nuff said. |
Now Hudson, on the other hand, I'm just riding to try to get some fat off of her. A half-draft, half-paint, she is doomed by her genetics to be a big fat mama. And now that the pastures are officially open, she is not wasting any time in stuffing her face with as much grass as possible. I'm considering a grazing muzzle or separate pasturing for her, and also am taking her up and down hills to burn some calories.
Yesterday, though, they both got a day off. I rode for seven hours, but on a tractor, not a horse. I spent the pretty day brush-hogging the field at the top of our property. It was a long, dusty day, but it needed doing, as it was starting to get brushy, with little trees and berry bushes and weeds taking over. I'm not sure what I want to do with that field (hay, pasture, cross country course...) but I know I want it to remain a field in any case, and not a shrubby weedy area that used to be a field.
Both mares will have their rides today.
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