Capture the moment.

After running around looking after 4 dogs, 7 horses, 6 cats and two tanks full of fish, I somehow managed to also go out to visit Moon.

My goal at this point, is rather then focus on having long riding sessions, squeeze a ride into every 20 or 30 minutes I can find.

So I skipped the saddle again, took him out to the arena and worked on bending, softening and contact. How'd it go? Meh. Not perfect. He fought me a good deal. But when we finished, I felt like I had the start of a half-decent leg-yield and had worked past SOME resistance. Not all, but I'm looking for baby steps here.

Granted, he tried to throw his head up on the trot transition twice, which did NOT impress me. Not sure why, since we've never had this problem at W's. Granted, I felt tense and stiff on his back, occassionally feeling like I was digging my seat bones into his back. *sigh* It's so hard to relax sometimes!

Oh, and I tossed him over my trot poles a couple of times, and was unimpressed when he just walked into the last little 18" jump. Seriously, he could have at least stepped OVER it! : P

Not spectacular, not amazing, not all that impressive. But it takes a lot of work to retrain a horse, and patience is something I have in plenty. And hey, it was nice to know I got 3 rides on him in a row.

The only 'ugly' moment was when I noticed an injury on his nose, and decided to spray it with the blue wound spray...yeah, he's a little head shy, and lunged backwards as the can 'whooshed' out the purpleness! My bad! And to get him over it, I sprayed him in the face with the bug spray without letting him leave! : P

And I also noticed another injury to his belly, further back and deeper this time. I'm starting to think I'm going to need a few more cans of the blue wound spray. I'm going a little nutty with this stuff! My poor purple nosed pony!

As for tomorrow, I'm hoping to catch the dressage show at BHP; best of luck to all my friends and their horses that are competing! Hope to see you there and cheer you on! For those going to the H/J schooling show, best of luck to you there too! I hope to get at least SOME competition pics this weekend! Sure wish I could find my video camera...

P.S. Only 40 days to the big move!