Monday, December 9, 2013

Fun

So, let's review, shall we?

Weather has been bitterly cold and snowy. The horse boy has been in his stall except for turn-out and the occasional romp in the outdoor arena for the past seven days. It is still cold and snowy. And now the wind is blowing.

We were the only riders in the indoor arena. And the wind is blowing the snow hard enough against the thin metal walls that I swear it sounds like a miniature machine gun. And I believe you are all aware of the fact that my horse is an Arabian, right? You've heard that Arabians are calm and hardly ever spook, right? They are docile and a 2 on a scale of 1 - 10, right?

Yeah, fun.

We actually did pretty well. I lunged him first, at a wicked fast trot until I was dizzy from spinning around in a circle. Then I attached side reins, which for some reason seemed to scream "let's canter as fast as we can" in them. So, yeah. We did that. Then I got on.

We spooked at the thin line of white running down the center of the arena, which was made of powery fine snow seeping from some place in the roof. We spooked at the jump standards on one side of the arena. We spooked at our non-existent shadow.

Through it all, I continued to ask for the walk. He would try to bolt and I would say no, and ask for the walk. After a bit, I started riding in a long figure eight and trotting on the X, but walking on the ends of the circle. The west side of the arena was especially fun, since every time we got down there the wind would give an extra little burst and snow would attack the wall, seeping through the cracks in a white haze.

I made the figure eights smaller, working from short side to short side in the arena. Ashke was very attentive and tried to bend and flex and move in a cadence while staring wide eyed at the sparkling snow dust floating down from the ceiling. Finally, Ashke stopped, planted his feet and tried to stare at the roof, which was threatening to blow off. He was as tight as a stretched wire and I could see muscles jumping beneath his skin.

I am not stupid. I got off.

All in all we rode for twenty minutes or so. Weds. lesson is going to be a joy, I can tell. Maybe we will do a lunge line lesson and canter. Maybe it will stop being so darn cold. Maybe I will win the Mega Millions Lottery. Maybe I should buy a ticket. Hummmmm.


4 comments:

  1. I laughed so much with this post! You are very brave for getting on despite his silliness, and I'm glad he didn't do anything explosive while you were on him! I would have gotten off at that point, too!

    I hope it warms up a bit so you can have a GREAT lesson tomorrow!

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    1. Thanks. He was trying to be a good boy, but it was just so darn scarey. And I was scared, so that certainly didn't help.

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  2. You do what you gotta do. Yes play the lottery win the lottery!

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    1. You know, I would, but then when we mentioned at home that we wanted to buy a lottery ticket, my son, who knew how much the lottery was, began planning what he would do with his life. Right now, he has every intention of becoming some type of engineer, helping with designing and building the first warp drive, finding a nano solution to pollution or helping solve the CO2 issue we are facing with Climate Change. If he won the lottery, he would run a non-profit pet shelter. And collect fancy sports cars. We got in a huge fight about it. A fight about something we hadn't even done yet.

      No lottery for us.

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