Ground work day

It was ground work day and by that i mean lunging. I’m still a little sore so i didn’t want to ride and well riding Jezebel is on the back burner for right now aways. When i went to pull the girls from the field all of the horses were on the cow side of the field. They share the field with two beef cattle (Suzy and Jenny) there are gates separating the two areas but they are open 24/7 and they all mingle. The cows have their own run in but not today, today they horses had taken it over. All 9 of them were on the cow side invading the cows space. As i walked up i was laughing and said out loud “are you all cows today?” they were. I grabbed my girls and lead them out one in each hand. Usually this is something easily accomplished but today Circe was in a snit and though i was able to take them both together she spooked a couple times at pretty much nothing.

Jez was first up and the footing in our outside sand arena was pretty much perfect. Only one other person was at the barn tacking up her horse. I love it when its quiet like that. I put Jez’s lunging cavason on her and out to the ring we went. Jez was perfect! Sound in both directions, (yay!) easy up down transitions, listening to me the whole time ears forward and happy to work. No fuss no muss, my wonderful willing pony was with me in the ring. We worked for about 20 minutes and then we did some carrot stretching and she was a little tight on the left. Good to know.  Then it was Circe’s turn.

I have only lunged Circe in a rope halter but today i put her lunging cavason on her. I bought it as a barn sale at the neighbors and i wanted to try it out. Circe was not thrilled with this. Shes super sensitive in general and having the lunge line not under her chin and coming off the nose band was freaking her out. I elected to work her though it. Though i’m all about making adjustments to deal with her hyper sensitivity i’m not all about catering to her whims on stuff that is easy for her to learn to deal with. Circe is a body language lunger. Small steps she walks, bigger steps she trots. If i move slow, she moves slow, if i move fast she moves fast. You have to be very aware of your body and what signals you are giving her. Today she was all zoom and defiance. If i stood still she would trot, If i moved my body at all she would trot really fast, if i took any steps it was canter time. I tried to calm her with my voice and was being very careful with my body language and that seemed to work for a bit but she would inevitably get all hyped up and then break into a canter. I would stop her and she would turn to look at me then i would point in the direction i wanted her to go this mostly worked except for the time she decided to rear. Yeah thats right she freaking reared at me. What is the deal with all the rearing horses in my life right now?! Not acceptable and i told her so and made her move out on the lunge.

My barn-mate who was riding her horse Snickers saw the whole thing and didn’t want to come into the ring with Circe acting like that. So i decided to just walk her around to cool her out so that others could work in the ring without being afraid of my hyped up red-headed mare. Thats when i noticed her flagging her tail at Eisenstein the 4 year old handsome Arab whose turnout on the other side of the ring and him going all gaga and getting all snorty at her. Oh shit she was in heat! The hot, cold, hot, cold weather threw my horse into heat in the dead of winter. Awesome. Hence the spooking at nothing, hence her getting all zoomy on the lunge and her general act up-ness. Its not an excuse for everything and in heat or not everybody works. If i have to work when i have PMS so do my horses but it helps me to understand where shes coming from. So i walked her around the ring while my barn friend rode her horse in the ring and Circe was as sweet as pie. She didn’t get in my bubble and didn’t walk any steps ahead of me. She was once again the doll baby pony i love and adore.

Then we had an ice storm last night. Ugh weather! That meant that todays training session with Jez was canceled with her trainer however as soon as the footing is okay shes coming out to work with Jez and see if we can fix/work on her current issues. I also have plans to call the vet out to give Jez the once over in case there is a physical element to all this fussing after i pick up her records from her current vet. I’m switching. My vet right now is awesome for lameness but they sent a letter that they are again raising prices and frankly i dont want to pay them. They are already the more expensive vet in the area. I’m lucky there are lots of good vets in the area to chose from.