Gifted

Finally got around to editing all of the photos from this show. It was a super
limited set because I was only there for a few hours, but I'm happy with them!

After my second lesson on Fuego, I received a surprising text from my trainer. She asked if I wanted to hack Fuego once a week on my own since we've been doing pretty well together. Of course, I gleefully said yes, even though my new work schedule is somewhat nightmarish. I don't get off until 6pm most days, and if I want to get up earlier, then I need to show up earlier, which is just blegh. Couple that with the commute being an hour between the office and the barn . . . yeah, it takes some convincing to get me out there on a weekday.

So now my weekends have been reconfigured slightly. If I have a lesson on Fuego on a Saturday, then I'll ride him again on Sunday. If I have a lesson on Destello, then I'll ride them both on the same day to save gas and time. Sunday's are typically my clean your house for the love of god day, so I like to keep the schedule open.

I head out the Saturday before the holidays to hack the beastie. It was already getting late, and I was slightly worried about him being more spooky in the dark. My fears were moot though; he nearly fell asleep on the cross ties. The only thing that seemed to disturb him the entire night was the rough donkey that ventured into the jump ring for some odd reason.

It wasn't an exciting ride at all. I kept things fairly short and simple. He was his usual self, behind my leg and all that. I used a spare Dressage whip to see if it would make any difference, but, uhh, he's still very slow. I used this ride to kind of gauge what I want to do with him/accomplish. In all honesty, I'm slightly directionless since I don't have any competitive goals with him at all. He's just a weird, goofy horse that I ride sometimes.

Eh, the plan, for now, is to just have fun. I think I'll splurge on the bareback converter and just figure out how to ride him without a saddle. That seems to fix all my problems these days.