Tuesday, January 4, 2011

first-day-back-itis

Seems to be getting better, although we still need to discuss her ground manners when she is excited.  I got to the barn yesterday at 3:30 and did not, in spite of my best intentions, ride.  It was cold, windy and since the barn is right up against the foothills, about to be dark.  I fed, patted and ran for home.
Today I got there in time to ride.  The first few minutes of balking, head swinging and teeth grinding had me grinding my teeth.  But in a reasonably short time she was trucking along nicely.  Turned into a good ride, did a little work over poles on the ground and I was happy with it.
I did have to tell another rider to get the hell out of my way.  There were four of us in an enormous outdoor arena and within 5 minutes of getting on her horse she had managed to stop directly in front of me twice.  At the time I was trotting a circle, about 30m, off the rail, digging a path in the damp footing.  We had been on this same circle since before she came into the arena.  How can you not know where I am going!  She did get better although she seemed to have to work in exactly the same area and when I moved over to the other side she did too.  This is lemming-like behavior, this lady is a nice person not somebody trying to get in the way, just clueless.  Nina pinned her ears at the poor horse a couple of times and he got out of her way.   I don't want to encourage that behavior but it does seem to work better to have her talk to the other horse than to have me talk to the other rider.
Still a good ride and a good day.

2 comments:

  1. Oh the joys of sharing an arena. I am pleased to say that the schooling -barn lady moved out of my barn, so no more sharing the arena with incompetent riders who let their horses kick out at my submissive little pony, and ride dangerously close, oh and don't know proper arena manners. All very nice people, but still not fun to share the arena with. However, seeing as our arena is dead right now, it doesn't matter anyways as I can't ride. Sorry about the rant, but I definitely feel your pain. Glad to hear that Nina's doing well though!

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  2. Sounds like Nina was a tad annoyed, too--hehe! And like they should have some kind of social lessons for arena etiquette! ;)

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