I'm exhausted! This is day 4 of 6 in my work week, and I'm used to having every third day off, so I'm definitely feeling the strain. Spending time with Gwen has been a HUGE help in managing the stress, and I'm so grateful for my time with her. The reason for the intense work-week is simple: I've asked for both Sat and Sun off so that I could accompany my barn to a horse show this Saturday. I am going as a spectator/indentured servant for the day, but I don't mind! I love being able to give back to my barn and, especially, my barn owner/riding instructor, who has been more than awesome through the years.
Anyways, because there's a horse show coming up on Saturday, the barn has gotten progressively busier as the week has progressed, as students seem to come out of the woodwork to practice! Though I had the idea in my head of going on a nice, relaxing bare-back walk with Gwen, one look at the ring and I knew that was out. There were at least ten kids in the ring. And our ring is tiny!
Cool and Star were using the "second" riding ring (which is usually a turn-out for the more rough and tumble geldings, who were subsequently relocated to the round-pen for the duration of the wagon-pulling lesson...) which left me with no where to practice. I wasn't upset though. Not at all actually! I was happy to turn my evening into nothing more than a grooming/grazing session with Gwen. We practiced standing still while grooming, and I got a nice good rub on her coat (I thought I'd gotten all that winter hair, but a huge cloud of it came off her butt today.)
We're still pretty terrible at the yo-yo game, because she hasn't quite gotten the idea of backing up off the rope-wiggle (still tends to walk toward me rather than away) but, the only time she does back off the wiggling rope is when I'm coming down from the tack room and asking her to back away from the door so I can get out. And today, I think I figured out why she gets it here, but not when I'm on the ground! Gwen is not a very tall horse, but I'm not a very tall girl, either. When I'm on the ground and I wiggle the rope, I usually have to get to phase four before she responds at all. At this point, with the rope swinging, it tends to really get wild and a couple times the buckle has popped her in the chin (and I feel just terrible about this!) which tends to ruin everything because a) I'll stop wiggling, and b) she'll just toss her head in the air to avoid it. However, when I'm up three steps in the tack room, and she is "below" me, wiggling the rope seems to produce much more vibration than when I'm on the ground. It's hard to explain, but I'm going to experiment with keeping my hand lower when I try to yo-yo her from the ground. Otherwise, I see a lot of 'tack-room yo-yo' sessions in our future!
So basically, all we did today was some grooming, and then a lot of grazing, which I think she appreciated. I'm anticipating a "full" arena again tomorrow, and probably Friday as well, so it's unlikely I'll be able to really play with her until next week (unless I break my "Sunday is a rest day" rule, which is VERY tempting since I will be off work and the barn is likely to be empty...)
Everything else is going great, tho! :)
J
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