I've been having mostly good rides on Zoe. She's in heat right now so she's VERY distracted. When she tunes into me rather than the boys in the pasture across the driveway, she does great but when she's wanting to talk to them, she's awful. She just needs more time in the saddle!
Last night I took her out for a ride and she was raring to go!! Go talk to the boys that is! I tied her to the patience tree while I got all of her tack out and when I returned she was all sweaty...from standing there...it as only 75 degrees and she was in the shade...and there was a nice breeze! Talk about being juiced!!! I decided it would be a good idea to do some lunging before getting on and I'm glad I did because she was itching to run and buck. Once I sent her out, she got frisky! I let her get it out of her system before asking her to focus and start warming up/working. It really didn't take too long before she was paying attention again and once she was relaxed we switched directions. It took even less time going the other direction.
I mounted and immediately she wanted to trot. But I slowed her down and kept her at a walk (a very fast walk, but a walk nonetheless). Every little thing was a distraction on this particular night - every. single. thing. We had to do lots of figure eights and weaving to keep focused. I guess you could say we worked on steering almost the entire ride!
We had a small group of bikers (on their bicycles, not motorcycles!) stop and watch me ride. A little background...I ride in our large front yard and we live on a rural road with lots of hills - people love to ride their bikes on our road. Of course Zoe thought that every time we went by she had to stop and look at them. Ugh. That got old! Finally they realized they were being a distraction so they slowly walked their bikes past. Zoe kept a close eye on them the entire time. Once they were out of site, we did some nice circles in both directions and I thought we should call it quits. So we started the cool down walk but she thought that meant we were going to visit the boys. We had a short discussion about how she needed to still listen to me even though we were cooling down (and on a loose rein). She decided to listen to me. Good girl.
I sprayed her down and turned her loose. She ran and played with Star and Melody for a little bit and then settled down to eating.
Tonight there will be no riding - we are off to the fair for some elephant ears and fresh squeezed lemonade! Should be fun (and never cheap)!!
I will have an update on Star after the weekend - until next time!!!
Quote for the day:
"Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way."
-Booker T. Washington
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