Beautiful day for a ride!

What a gorgeous morning here in Texas! And I finally felt well enough to ride. I have had a head cold for over a week now, and there's no sense riding if you don't feel balanced yourself - it's just not safe. So for the past few days, I had been grooming Arthur just for the pleasure of it.

After feeding the horses this morning, I put my riding britches on and headed back out to the barn. As I walked out of the tack room with my saddle, both Sweetie and Rocky had their ears perked up and eyes wide open requesting, "Pick me!" But I already knew I would ride Rocky - it has been a few weeks and I really missed riding my giant red chestnut.

He loved the grooming, and the treats, of course. We tacked up and went in the ring, and I mounted up without any trouble. Rocky was a little excited and walked off as I mounted up. We started out with a relaxed walk on a long rein, and then went up into a trot. We did bunches of circles and serpentines to keep his mind busy, and then I wanted to practice some trot-halt-trot transitions. I have never done those on Rocky before, but thought it would be a good experience for him. I guess I goosed him a little too much and he bucked a little like I was asking him to canter. Now, I knew not to do that today since it has been a while since I have ridden him, but he assumed as much. So instead, we practiced walk-trot-walk transitions until he was calm and understood what I was asking. I also practiced using the smallest signal possible to get him to move forward. Rocky has a very strong personality and he gets mad if you asked for something too firmly and don't give him a chance to move out without goosing him. He much prefers me to ask verbally "trot on" or even just cluck a little and lean forward rather than squeeze with my legs too much. I'll always remember when he was super green and I would squeeze with both legs, and he would stand there at the halt, turn his nose around and look at me. Now I know he was probably just saying I had to ask politely, but I would continue squeezing more firmly, and was even known to kick a little to ask. And Rocky stood there, hooves firmly planted on the ground, and turned and looked at me again... It seems like our relationship has evolved to a much more "polite" friendship - where I ask gently and he responds in kind. MUCH better. :)

More later - after I rode Rocky, I gave Sammie a pony ride on Arthur - and a Jack Rabbit graced us with his presence not 20 yards away from us as he hopped through the ring! :)