Saturday

My ten-day riding streak was ended by the weather.  Ride through the country in the freezing rain?  No thank you. It's not like we have any heavy-duty training or showing goals to gear up for!

After a few more crummy days (one with extra wind, one when I was just stricken by the Blahs) I finally rode again yesterday.   Jabby and I did almost 5.6 miles through the nurseries:

After the face-smashing episode last week, I put the running martingale back on for the first time in almost six months, but we didn't really need it.   He was mostly good, listening well and responding to my half-halts to keep his hind end engaged.  If I felt him getting too wound up, I let him walk on the buckle for a few minutes. Dear Jabby:  This is fun.

We did have one minor meltdown:  after gamely trotting through puddles on the nursery paths without breaking stride, an odd black-colored one (due to sediments or something else in the ground at that particular spot) was apparently much cause for alarm.  Jabby tried to step around it, kicked a rock in, and then proceeded to do a Devil Water Dance where he kicked out, leapt forward, and set off on a buck-prop-bolt binge that caught me by surprise enough to nearly unseat me.   We walked calmly back and stood by the offensive black water until he placed one hoof in it, and then carried on with the rest of our ride as if nothing had happened.

Towards the end of the ride he was mentally tuning me out a little, so when we got back we did a quick school in our riding field -- basic w/t/c, stretching and softening, cantering on a circle over one raised cavaletto -- just to end on a good note.  

Hopefully today I can fit in both horses.  I'm feeling very stuck and unmotivated and I kind of just want to "unplug" until spring.  The blog turns five this week, and I'm not even very excited about that!