I sat on Foster yesterday for the first time in 2 weeks, and already was feeling a bit disconnected in the saddle after the break. Normally if I’m feeling that way I find that really working at the trot and canter help me to find a rhythm, but of course those are not options for me at the moment. So we worked on transitions and lateral work until both of us felt a little more balanced and Foster was stepping through and under. It’s amazing that even 30 minutes of walk work can dredge up a sweat in both of us.

Day 3 of teaching the horse to smile. He cracks me up!

The last couple weeks have been absolutely chaos with the constant comings and goings, vets, vet schools, wraps on, wraps off, stall rest, turn out, and the like. So I spent Sunday organizing my thoughts and my trunk, and now my space at the barn no longer resembles a war zone. Cleaning tack and putting things in their correct place is always therapeutic for me, and I left the barn in a better state than I arrived.

I probably won’t have many interesting rides to report for a while, though I will be considering all of the wonderful suggestions for walk exercises you have provided. I may be going to visit the parents fairly soon, and will definitely pick up my surcingle and perhaps teach Foster to long line. I’ve got that dreaded walk pirouette and turn on the haunches to perfect. And there will be a whole lot of walk pole exercises for us to play with once we [hopefully] get confirmation that this is an angle issue, and not a tendon.

That particular appointment is a week from today, August 10. I wish we could have squeezed it in sooner, but alas, there’s 3 people’s schedules to consider and that just isn’t the case. I hope I’m not prematurely putting all my eggs in the palmar-angle basket, but there’s not much I can do, and not much else I want to think about, until next week.

In other news, a couple big projects are finally getting started at the house on the hill, and so expect more silly house posts to come!