Mission Accomplished.

I've had a secret goal to reach thirty followers by the end of January. Done. I am so pumped. The fact that anyone wants to read my blather on a regular basis is outstanding, but thirty of you? Woo hoo! I promise to keep posting poor quality pictures and ranting and raving about all walks of pony life.

I also finally got around to doing a little research on Jade. Her JC name is Precious Jane. 71 (!) starts, 5 wins, 11 seconds, 15 thirds. $204,469 in earnings. Would it surprise you to hear that her ankles have some rounding to them?!

I gotta say, I have a little more respect for her now. She raced in all claiming races in PA. She's by Cope With Peace out of Pok Ta Pok mare What A Commotion.

i'll pull her mane in the next day or two, i swear.

She didn't get ridden yesterday, but I didn't feel like longing so she was a little wiggly to start out. We worked on some cavaletti, then moved on to learning how to do a real circle. This was incredibly difficult for me because even with my stirrups shortened, she's so tiny and my legs are so long, I have a really hard time reaching her sides. I can get her to move forward, and she's getting great at half halts from my seat, but inside leg to outside rein for bending is really tricky. We finished with her best trot work yet, a really relaxed lap of the arena to the left with no ear pinning at imaginary monsters.

I rode her back to the barn, taking a slow tour of the facilties first. She looked around a bit, but she was relaxed and she always had an ear pointed back at me.

the big galump.

Getting on Bobby afterwards was a change! I actually had to spread my legs (haha) to ride. I also didn't have my spurs on from riding Jade, so it was all leg leg leg to keep the donkey forward. I didn't have any real game plan headed in, but it's Bobby so of course things to work on popped up.

I warmed him up on a loose rein, working only on keeping a forward, consistent rhythm. He got settled down pretty quickly and started swinging along at a good clip. I was making a conserted effort to use my hands as little as possible, so I slowed him down with a few (or sometimes lots) of strides of sitting trot. He responded really well to that tactic. I was actually really, really happy with our work today. We both worked super hard to keep going without rushing, and Bobby made an awesome effort to streeeetch down and out. His back was so loose when we were done, his whole body was swinging along. It. Was. Awesome.

We also stuck in a few runs over the cavaletti, but Bobby was feeling so good, he thought it would be best if he cantered over all four poles at once instead of trotting through them. I know I should have been mad, but I was giggling because he was so proud of himself for his effort. We did get through them normally once, so I left them alone.

Someone enjoyed their neck massage before riding.