planBE

Yesterday was day four in a row of trail riding. Usually at this point my pony starts to whither. Everything becomes relaxed and easy, and we enjoy much time on the buckle. We spend our time practicing with leg aids and neck rein and a good time is had by all. We have also had four days of epic footing. The best footing of the entire year. (no rocks, no roots, no mud, no bugs) Trails are well padded and the track is fast. My Q that I thought was so lethargic 10 days ago has shown me that he is all go-go-go! But I still figured that by Day 4 of constant riding, he would start to slow down. I was wrong. Yesterday he was all funny faces and ears at his buddy Shadow when we trotted side by side, and he definitely wanted to blow past him several times. On one canter stretch where Shadow was leading and Q was accelerating up the hill, Shadow spooked at some branch and my buddy B stopped him. Well Q was having none of that, and literally went to pass him ... until I stopped h...

Holy wind batman! It might have been sunny, but the wind at -15 degrees celsius cut through us as we crossed the field. It almost had an impact, but our field crossing is a very short distance. So we just grin and bear it. And then we get to the narrow trails and find ourselves in quite the pickle. The heavy snow of late has weighed down the branches and created quite the little tunnel. Not so bad if you are riding a pony or walking. But we were over height. I stopped to take a picture and instead snapped an image of Q telling me to “duck, lady!”. He did warn me, so I guess I shouldn’t blame him for all the face whipping I got by conifer and birch branches with crusty snow and ice minutes after his chattiness. And it got me thinking about Q’s personnality and all the recent internet rabbit holes I fell into these last few days. First, the whorls. https://www.westernhorseuk.com/horsemanship-blog/2019/2/17/whorlology Turns out, Qs head whorl is set high and centered mean...