Banished.

S2's horse moved out last Sunday and things have been...interesting.

In short, Moon runs the herd and he's a bit of a dink. A lot of a dink. To the point of running the poor horse right through a fence. Go Moon. He learned well from ol'Black.

So after the fence was fixed, Mooner was sent off to live alone in the front pasture, where he's been running the fence and screaming. Sometimes he eats like a proper horse or stands in the shelter. He's not a total noob.

I went out yesterday and rode the piss and vinegar out of him. Over an hour, with a LOT of trotting. I like to believe we were all long and stretchy like we've been practicing, but instead I'm pretty sure he was working at doing the opposite of his normal routine...and instead of doing the giraffe, he had discovered going behind the bit. And tucking his face up to his chest. Damn horse.

We rode and trotted, and circled and figure-8'd until my legs and side burned. They burn like crazy today.

Then we hacked out 4 miles with S2.

Needless to say, I'm exhausted. Add that to the hectic life at work (joys of working in infectious disease in a time like right now), and keeping house as winter approaches, well, I don't have much spare energy.

There's a new horse coming by the barn on Sunday, which means reintroducing pasture mates again. Plus one that's away recovering from surgery. So I suspect the next month will be insane chaos of introducing horses, and I'm not sure I'm gonna get that long and low stretchy work that Coach W was recommending. So do I just push past it and work him to work him regardless of quality, or do I focus on what he can do well and leave it at that?

Joys of ponys.