Still Time : Rodeo

Limerick and I played a super fun game of pretend today. It was called "Limerick Moonlights as a Rodeo Bull" and involved some magic feat of stickiness on my part and a whole lot of laughter from Hillary... I imagine we looked something like this:

Except switch out random cowboy for little old me

That's right, all four of his feet left the ground in one spectacular leap/spook/RUN MOM, WE MUST GET AWAY FROM THE LIMERICK-EATING.......fallen tree branch. Yep, the bastard almost dumped me to spook at a downed twig, only made better by the fact that we had just accomplished a legitimately scary trail ride through an unknown forest, over rocky terrain. We made it back to farm property just in time for him to lose his s**t and attempt to leave me in the dust. I actually have no clue how I stayed on and vaguely remember flying into the air, crashing back down onto his back, and having to extricate my legs from where they landed, which just happened to be in front of my saddle flaps. Thank God for stirrups and some semblance of heels down, or I would've been a goner.

However, despite that craziness we actually had a phenomenal ride! Hill, Huer, Lims and I went down said scary trail (Lim and I for the first time) and had so much fun exploring and enjoying the sunshine. It was a cold, clear, gorgeous day and the perfect way to end a kind of crappy week. I had some rather lackluster rides from Tuesday-Friday involving lots of avoiding frozen spots in the arena and a bazillion circles, so it was just what I needed. I also fell on the ice Friday and ripped a hole in the knee of my newest pair of FITS (boooooooooo), so I was ready for something good to happen. Limerick surprised me by being mostly sane and chill on the trail, humoring me by walking over various fallen trees and being patient enough to take some pictures. We only had some small spooks, one of which was at an Irish-Sport-Horse-eating chipmunk... I mean, you can't really blame the poor guy. After all, chipmunks are extremely vicious, carnivorous, legitimately terrifying, scoot-inducing creatures with a particular liking for 1600 pound Chestnut-flavored horses.

Moving on.. we got to the end of the trail and came to a gorgeous open field, which Hill quickly bullied me into cantering across. It's not that I didn't want to, I was just the tiniest bit scared after some previous attempts at cantering in open spaces. However, I did it, and Limerick was a total gem :) Lim and I took the lead and Hill followed shortly behind, eventually passing us. Lims kept his head the whole time and came back to me as soon as I asked, which was just awesome! It was only our second time cantering in the open and our first with another horse, which I think might actually help his brain. I felt so free, happy, and exhilarated (cue every cheesy line from every horse movie ever. I'm mostly thinking of Flicka). We had just made it back to the barn when the incident happened. I fervently wish that Hill had gotten a video of it, but it was way too sudden and unexpected =/

So, here's the plan for the next couple of days:
tomorrow- ride, hopefully do some canter poles and maybe a cross rail, pack to head back to school
Monday- ride, pack some more
Tuesday- ride, Limerick gets a bath!!!!!, head back to school with pony in tow

On an end note, I will say that my rides last week were not lackluster because of Limerick, I was just in a weird funk. A month of training did wonders for the big baby and he's been so much more responsive and lovely since I got back :) I'm pretty sure he resents the uncoordinated amateur flopping around on his back after getting pro-rides for a month, but he'll deal. I'll leave you with some pictures from the past week and from the great ride today!