A is for Awesome

In keeping with my own personal holiday tradition, I woke up this morning with some kind of death plague. I hate that I catch everything so easily. 1 holiday get together on the 24th = 1 death plague coming right up. Why didn't I learn practical math like this in high school?

I forced myself to go to the barn, and got there to find the water pipe to it had burst. Luckily, barn owner is smart and had filled multiple large buckets of water in case the taps froze in the cold (welcome to the west coast, where it doesn't stay freezing long enough to justify permanent options like heat tape or bucket heaters, lol) so it's not like there's no water at all. If the pipe had to go, this was actually not too bad as far as timing.

Did I even clip her?! Wow, it grew back fast.

Carrying buckets of water back and forth with death plague made me just about forget about riding, but Bridget seemed keen to get out ( what kind of alternate universe is this, where B is motivated one in our partnership?!)

Number of horses I trust to safely navigate icy roads =1

Off to the indoor we went. I spent an extra long time warming up in walk, since we were sharing for the first bit and the baby horse we were sharing with was nervous of B's stampiness. She's not light on her feet, lol.

B felt fantastic - we did a ton of suppling work and transitions in walk. Traver right on the circle felt the easiest ever, and only slightly worse to the left. Yay!

Our friend left, and I pushed B up to trot. And It was fantastic! She felt like Audrey, there was so much cadence and suspension there. Normally her trot is nice, but nowhere near Audrey nice! It was totally adjustable, so powerful, and offered up so easily. One of those moments I think I'll be remembering well into the future. I trotted around on my fancy pony telling her how awesome she was, adding in some changes of direction, some forward and back, and of course a bit of traver and renver, until I felt her start to tire a little, called it good, and hacked back home. I don't think we even cantered.

"Ok B, at A, youre going to trot, doing your best Audrey impression."

So, thanks B, for the best holiday gift ever - a most amazing dressage ride.