I approached Friday’s ride with eagerness because I had not been able to ride Mia the previous two weeks.  Normally I LOVE riding Mia, but ever since Quizzy entered the picture a month ago Mia has not been the same horse.  Debbie had Quizzy checked over by the vet, including palpating the ovaries, and the vet found nothing wrong with Quizzy and she told Debbie just to feed Quizzy more Regumate to try and cycle her out of her hormone driven manias.  Apparently the previous…

Wednesday was nice, sunny, windy, and cold.  Mick had been out for an hour before being brought back in and even though he wears a warm blanket he was obviously stiff.  I massaged his loins with my roller ball hand massager, he enjoyed it but he was as stiff as always as we headed toward the ring.  When I mounted and we started walking his back did not “swing” and he was not too happy about having to move.

After a minute or two of just walking around I got to work on loosening…

Forty seven years ago when I first read Vladimir Littauer’s “Common Sense Horsemanship” I was first introduced to the mysteries of effective contact.  All of my previous riding, four years of trail riding in Chile and Uruguay, had been done on loose reins, and contact was a deep, deep mystery to me.  I tried to learn all I could from books since I could not ride much until I got my first horse 5 years later.  Then, since I could not afford good lessons, it was me and my…

It has been an exciting week riding.

Debbie has a new mare at her barn, a piebald (black and white pinto) Tennessee Walking horse mare named Quizzy.  Since Quizzy still has hind shoes on, with trailers, Debbie does not want to turn her out in the mare pasture yet, but has been turning her out in the area around the riding rings to run around.  The mare pasture is right next to this turn out area, and Mia, lonely and friendless since her best friend was sold, quickly…