Rain, Rain, Go Away

And the rain kept falling. With every step, I was embraced with water. It seemed so typical, because, like this whole week, it’s been pouring. Though, today, I had hoped it would stop, even for just an hour. It didn’t.

I was once again making my way into the woods of Sumner Hill Stables, this time things were different. I had my good friend AJ with me, of course being the city slicker he is; AJ didn’t have very good footwear for these wet, muddy conditions. Oh well, together we made our way into the woods to retrieve my soaking horse. Normally I would have found Sly standing by his “girlfriend”, Marina, but today he was alone. Swiftly I put the halter on, and off we went into the rain, towards the barn.

My two best guy buddies together, and AJ already was convinced Sly didn’t like him. Honestly I don’t know how you can tell if a horse likes you; all we had done was curry and brush him. I have to admit Sly was being a bit ornery and tossed his head a little, but he was still being good. Anyways we got Sly groomed and tacked up, now it was time to show off my stuff. I hopped on Sly and we went for a quick ride. I started with a walk, trot, canter, warm-up, which he was very good about. AJ was insisting that I jump a few jumps, and there were a few 12” ones set up already. So I easily directed Sly and we jumped over both of them in a matter of minutes. This was all a piece of cake, normally we jump around 3’, but we were in the indoor arena so it was a bit harder to jump much higher.

After I was finished, I asked AJ if he wanted to ride Sly, now remember AJ hasn’t been around horses much, none-the-less ridden one, so I figured this would be interesting. He was able to get on just fine, of course with the use of a mounting block (a big step stool). And walking around was easy, it was boring for me and Sly but I think AJ enjoyed it. We just walked around in the arena for ten minutes or so, and I blabbered on about random horse stuff. Sly was practically falling asleep until I asked him to trot. AJ wanted to go a bit faster, so faster we went. Sly picked up speed easily and went into a very slow trot. After two or three strides AJ had enough, I don’t blame him; it’s hard to sit the trot when you don’t know what you are doing, you feel unsecure and unbalanced. He felt like he was about to fall off, but I knew he wouldn’t. We continued from there to walk some more, I talked about how to tell a horse to go, stop, turn left, and turn right. We also did a bit of a rein back (walked backwards), but this was only like two steps. Sadly, time was running out and we had to get Sly un-tacked and fed still. So now I had to teach AJ how to get off. It really was simple enough, all you do is take both feet out of the stirrups, put your left hand on the front of the saddle, then take your right leg and swing it over the saddle and jump down, but you have to make sure you swing your leg over high enough, otherwise it’s a little awkward. AJ did a good job over all, he had a little trouble getting his leg all the way over the saddle, but he managed to get down without falling.

Over all it was a great day, even with the rain, and Sly having extra energy. Hopefully AJ can come out again, on a nicer day.

(The above image was not taken today in the indoor arena as described, it is used to represent the height of the jump that we were jumping.)