From racing to riding... the training diary of an off the track Standardbred

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Fun with Friends

Happy pony ears
Tuesday was a day to have fun with friends. Once I got home from school, I loaded Jet onto the trailer and headed off to my friend Mary-Kate's house.

Mary-Kate also has a Standardbred (a mare named Katie) who I have talked about numerous times on this blog. Jet absolutely adores her! He always nickers when he sees her and puts up a fuss when she goes out of site (something I definitely need to work on).

Dad drove us there and went home to relax while we rode. Jet was fairly well behaved as I brushed him removed the caked in mud on his coat, picked his feet, then tacked him up. With a little more practice, I'd feel comfortable bringing him to a show all by myself.

Smile!
Mary-Kate hopped on Katie and I got on Jet. We walked around for a while, walked up the street and back, then rode in her field. I love being able to ride in a larger area than my 85x80 little ring because Jet has the ability to really stretch and lengthen his stride. In my ring at home, he'll get to exactly were he needs to be balance and movement wise but then a corner immediately pops up and we lose it. In a field, we have a lot more room to work with and he can't use the fences, that would be in a normal ring, to balance off of.


 We did walk, trot, canter, and attempted some ground poles. Apparently, Jet has forgotten how to go over ground poles. He refused, ran out, and jumped them but he didn't really go over them like he is supposed to. That another thing to work on.

After that, we went for a trail ride and rode by the cranberry bogs and the multiple ponds and lakes that are by them. I took my camera and proved that it IS possible to take semi-decent pictures while riding a horse!

We then went back to the field were Mary-Kate took pictures of me riding. By this time, the sun was pretty much down so the pictures came out blurry as you can see. I cooled Jet down, took off his tack, and hopped back on with just a halter and lead rope. Mary-Kate ponied us around for a bit and then we called it a night. The two love birds went their separate ways but they will definitely see each other soon!

Oh, and a few days ago we also popped over some small fences to mix things up. I'll put pics of those too!

Click to see more pics!