To ride dressage is to dance with your horse, equal partners in the delicate and sometimes difficult work of creating harmony and beauty.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Things that go baa in the day

Had a good ride on Lance today, in spite of – or perhaps due to! – a couple of major spooks. He still doesn't know what to think of my sheep, and apparently the rams (in the lot closest to the arena) did something really scary today – several times. The first two times he spun and bolted to the opposite end of the arena; the third time he just flinched hard. I think he actually humped up a bit at the end of the bolting, but he's so smooth (and lazy) that it was a non-issue. There's nothing like successfully riding out a new horse's reaction to fear to cement your confidence level. :-)

When I was done riding I decided to try for some good portraits with a nice green background, and lead him into the pasture. I didn't have much luck. He checked out the overturned stock tank, but really didn't see anything else that riveted his attention. At least I got a decent shot of his lovely mane (which I can't see myself pulling or trimming anytime soon!).

Then I lead him up to our gate to retrieve a box that had been delivered earlier. This gave him another chance to get a good look at the sheep, and I tried again:

This is about as wide-eyed as he gets. I think he's going to be pretty unflappable with time!

4 comments:

Laura said...

What a baby face! He's just so Cute!

Mary Ann said...

He's lovely, isn't he?

Michelle said...

I think so! ;-)

TBDancer said...

My OTTB "met" a herd of goats (with ram) that now live in a pen at a home about a mile south of my house. First time we rode by the pen he was "all ears" (I couldn't see his eyeballs ;o) but he doesn't think much of them.