HEATWAVE

Wowza, climate change is real! We got temperatures reaching up to 37 degrees here on the West Coast, so I didn’t do a ton of riding this week and past weekend, more like hosing off the poor horse!

While I am a fan of the heat, I was concerned about our furrier friends. I ended up cancelling Oats’ jump lesson on Saturday (32 deg!!) and we went on a summer adventure instead! And on Sunday I got up early and was in the saddle around 8am, but it was still incredibly hot so we just did a little w/t and called it quits. Monday I got up VERY early and had my butt in the saddle at 6:35am to beat the heat- and it did the trick! The shade was out over the outdoor arena, so I rode outdoors for as long as we had shade and then I get to beat it to work- so, finished up around 7am. It was much cooler then, thank god.

Swimming time!

Our summer adventure was a great call though. We hoofed it up to the Cowichan River and went swimming and it was glorious! The water was a bit cold (I am a wimp though) and it was very hot out. Gidget came with us and we definitely enjoyed ourselves.

We then zipped over to Enrico’s for a wine slushy (yess!!) and hit up Ice Cream Mountain on our way to the barn. I rode Oats bareback at the walk for 10 mins and that was it, phew…it was smoking hot! I felt very good about cancelling my lesson that day, it just didn’t seem very fair for the horses.

Wine slushy!

And now we’re off to another summer adventure, after a ride tonight 🙂 I love summer, and it’s starting to cool off from our insane heatwave here.

So many good flavours: Peanut butter and chocolate, Raspberry cheesecake, Pralines, Caramel cookies ‘n’ cream!

Trying something new: Mountain trail class!

We took the horses up island this weekend for a big adventure- our first mountain trail class! I had signed up, oh three months ago? After my farrier mentioned to me that she was working with a trainer who had an arena full of the obstacles. It was SO FUN and there were a ton of obstacles to try- the arena was crammed with them! I loved it!

Mr. Oats and the fabulous Lance doing their course, ft. a small hissy fit by Oats, haha. I guess he couldn’t go the whole day without SOME opinions!

We took Oats and Summer, and our other friend borrowed a gorgeous Andalusian named ‘Lance’ to try in the clinic. Lance was extremely experienced at all the obstacles so she had a pretty fun and non-complicated day, ha!

Oats on the other hand…Was actually pretty good! We had one obstacle he could not figure out (a narrow bridge. He couldn’t figure out where to put his feet, like at all. So we let that one go and focused on the others) and he DID NOT want to drop down into the water, so I just went around and got in that way.

King of the hill!

Still really fun! Oh and at lunch Oats took off from the trailer. Jerk!! He wanted to check things out.

Morning was unmounted and playing with the obstacles in-hand, which he was ok with but I could tell he wanted me to go over the obstacles first, rather than have him go through independently. After lunch we all hopped on and rode them, and then at the end we did a little course. Really great! 😉 And then after everyone was finished their course, we goofed off on the obstacles (I had a drink, White Claw of course) and I had it on top of the big tires! Hahahah.

Mr. Oats tackles the tires, ft. White Claw 😉

It was so warm out and I got sunburned as heck. ARGH. Dumb, I thought I had reached far enough with my sunscreen- newsflash- I didn’t. Shoooooooot.

My funnest/best obstacles? So many! The tires, the big platform, the sunken bridge, the roller bridge, the slosh pad, the ‘car wash’ and the teeter-totters. Loved it!

Focusing forward

Dressage lesson time! Now, I knew Oats’ big energy from the past week was gone, so how would he be? WELL, hilariously he was good to warm up and when we began the real work, started getting silly about the back door being opened.

I got mad. I mean come ON we had a good warmup and you give me this? Looking for an excuse??

From a few years ago, looking good!

My trainer was pretty funny about it, she said well look at it this way- not EVERYONE wants to go to the gym to work hard and he just isn’t like that. She said we need to channel it, use it for good- not get angry. Fair enough!!

He worked quite intensely actually, I was very surprised. We hadn’t had a ride that intense since…Over a year ago maybe? We did a big power trot, and went into leg yield, shoulder-in, haunches in, and work, work work work work! Bending in a BIG bend, getting the outside rein active (ok, this is the part that I suck the hardest at….and never really got it 100%) and just powered along!

I was tired, Oats was sweaty! We really hadn’t had that kind of big intense riding yet this year, as we were definitely playing it safe.

Though, we did no-stirrups for the canter work and then I had to work harder than Oats, haha. The right rein had some lovely downward transitions, the left was a work in progress, and not so great, hahah. BUT we got some really solid work out of him and were able to amp up the intensity in a way I have been kind of leery about. Go Oats! By the end he wasn’t sweaty but I was 🙂 I guess he’s getting in good shape these days.

You, forever

A good weekend! Though I was right about Oats’ incredible energy being…Time limited. He had a few backing up moments in the indoor before my lesson, but then gave it up and wasn’t hot or spooky or anything. In fact, he got quite ‘blah’…Ha, so back to old sedate Oats I guess? I should have appreciated the energy more when I had it! Boo.

We worked on the limited jumps in the indoor, as most were moved to the outdoor, though I am not jumping in the outdoor currently because the footing is too deep/shifty, soooo not many jumps to choose from!

We made it work though with some circle exercises using the green box fillers, and Oats did it! He finally nailed his right lead on a CIRCLE instead of this awful swap thing. He wasn’t a ball of fire, sure, but he was steady and very nice in his efforts.

The course felt long, ha so I guess it really has been like 3 weeks since we had a jump lesson and worked on a course- on my own I generally school a few xrails and stuff but nothing like a full course. We did it twice and I called it at that, Oats was getting a bit tired since he suddenly didn’t have his power and energy anymore, ha.

On Sunday I met up with a friend and she tried Oats out for a half lease, and I’m happy to say I think it will be a good partnership! I’m glad to see that and I think they will have fun together 🙂 And then it basically rained…Blah. Hoping for some good weather/the weather to turnaround, it was SO COLD last week. Brrrrrr. Wearing sweaters and jackets again. In June?!! UGH.

How we left

Ha, I had some kind of disappointing rides on Oats the past week that led me to not being thrilled about writing about them. In a nutshell, he’s suddenly feeling good. REALLY good. So he’s been a little hot rod to ride, spicy and bouncing (literally) hot to trot and I hated it!! I felt out of control, unsure and unused to it.

From a few weeks ago. He’s on fire now!

It’s not a bad thing, but after 8 months of rehab, and 10 months total post-rehab I felt completely out of my league with my new, fast, alert Superpony who was jazzed up beyond belief and NOT settling to his old, sedate Oats of past.

I didn’t know what to do? We hand galloped for 45 minutes last Saturday because he was so jazzed up and wasn’t settling, at all. GO GO GO like the Energizer Bunny?! I almost wished we HAD our jump lesson b/c I could really use that power and energy, but on my own hacking? Sheesh man, this is a lot to work with.

Sunday he was a touch calmer but still had a real undercurrent of BIG energy. We worked over some cross rails, and it was fine. Monday we did some quieter work- most at the walk/trot, and focused on lateral work at the walk and a touch at the trot.

Tuesday he was on fire again, and damn, we had a long, hard ride. Sort of a ‘Come to Jesus’ ride I guess? He was MOVING though and by the end, going incredibly nicely. It was just exhausting- physically and emotionally- to ride out the little pocket rocket first!

Wednesday I didn’t ride, man I was tired! So I put Oats’ halter on and we took a walk to a local park to watch the tennis players. People loved seeing him going down the sidewalk- ”Look, a horsie!!!” and I told them his name was Mr. Oats and the kids shouted ”I love you Mr. Oats!!’…so that was cute!

Thursday we finally had a lesson- I also chalk his bigtime energy to us not having jump lessons for three weeks, and no dressage lesson last week either. We need some help to harness this!! (and supervision, I guess!) ha. It went really well! I started off tense and wanting to get in a fight with Oats, but we did a big power warm -up that was basically hand galloping around over some teeny cavalettis with my lesson mate, and then settled and focused and this is funny, for the wild man Oats, our lesson was mostly done later without stirrups 😉 so, I guess not so wild after all??

It’s a matter of perspective. I’m beyond fortunate to have a zippy, SOUND hot to trot pony after so many years and if he’s feeling GOOD GOOD GOOD right now and wants to GO, well, I go with him and enjoy that ride! I have a real feeling it won’t last, and he’ll be back to little old draggy Oats, but until then…Hang on and gooooo!

(Ok so it will take a bit of convincing on my behalf to really enjoy that feeling of ‘too much’ but damn, he is looking and moving amazingly well right now).