Who won?
Alright, busy weekend so didn't have an afternoon to trailer out to the park to ride. So I decided to work my two competition horses in my arena. It's got this very fine gravel footing so never gets muddy or slick. Which is good in a super wet winter like this.
So I set up some new jumps by placing bales of straw lengthwise, covering with old table clothes and laying those cheap landscape timbers over the top and on each side. Made three of them.
Go catch the two horses, brush off dried mud so I could tell who's who. (Just kidding, one's a horse the other's a pony)... Grasp a 18' lunge rope and whip and lead them to arena.
Start with hyper horse. Warmed her up by getting her trotting big circles around me. Then angle circle so she hits one of the jumps. This horse jumps like a deer! Pretty to watch - almost impossible to ride :). but boy does she love to look like Prancer! So I enjoy watching her from the ground. She works for 20 minutes, then I tie her up for a break while I work pony.
Pony trots the warmup just fine. Then I angle towards the jump. She glances at it, then makes a quick right turn and bypasses it, yanking lunge rope and me four feet over. OK, sneaky turd - I brace myself as she trots around and lines up at it again. Yank - held it. Pony grudgingly jumps.
We play this game of wits and strength for ten minutes. The pony comes up with brainstorm - she is going to pull outwards the entire circle. So here I am, all 4'10" and 115lbs, leaning back like I'm skiing while I'm battling wills with the trotting pony to keep her doing the circle that I want her to do. I'm even having to use both hands since my hand strength isn't what it used to be...
So we continue this battle for another 5 minutes. Then pony gets a new idea. Now she's not only pulling hard outwards - but starting to refuse to go here and there. So I'm holding rope with both hands - then having to free hand with whip to make her move, then she jumps forward yanking my one arm even harder..... I finally made her do as many jumps as the horse had. But I think I got a bigger workout than the pony!!
Love her to death but every now and then the pony side shows itself... I'm riding her in the arena tomorrow - it's less taxing than lunging her around me in circles...
My body is so muscle sore now....
So I set up some new jumps by placing bales of straw lengthwise, covering with old table clothes and laying those cheap landscape timbers over the top and on each side. Made three of them.
Go catch the two horses, brush off dried mud so I could tell who's who. (Just kidding, one's a horse the other's a pony)... Grasp a 18' lunge rope and whip and lead them to arena.
Start with hyper horse. Warmed her up by getting her trotting big circles around me. Then angle circle so she hits one of the jumps. This horse jumps like a deer! Pretty to watch - almost impossible to ride :). but boy does she love to look like Prancer! So I enjoy watching her from the ground. She works for 20 minutes, then I tie her up for a break while I work pony.
Pony trots the warmup just fine. Then I angle towards the jump. She glances at it, then makes a quick right turn and bypasses it, yanking lunge rope and me four feet over. OK, sneaky turd - I brace myself as she trots around and lines up at it again. Yank - held it. Pony grudgingly jumps.
We play this game of wits and strength for ten minutes. The pony comes up with brainstorm - she is going to pull outwards the entire circle. So here I am, all 4'10" and 115lbs, leaning back like I'm skiing while I'm battling wills with the trotting pony to keep her doing the circle that I want her to do. I'm even having to use both hands since my hand strength isn't what it used to be...
So we continue this battle for another 5 minutes. Then pony gets a new idea. Now she's not only pulling hard outwards - but starting to refuse to go here and there. So I'm holding rope with both hands - then having to free hand with whip to make her move, then she jumps forward yanking my one arm even harder..... I finally made her do as many jumps as the horse had. But I think I got a bigger workout than the pony!!
Love her to death but every now and then the pony side shows itself... I'm riding her in the arena tomorrow - it's less taxing than lunging her around me in circles...
My body is so muscle sore now....
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