Thursday, November 17, 2011

Holding My Breath

I feel as it I am waiting for a Diva Riva meltdown - or someone to bring back my naughty mare. 



Each day this week has been a good ride, in my opinion.  I feel we are moving forward, however slowly, once again. 


End of daylight savings time means it is pitch black dark by 6 pm.  Pretty much ends our outside rides, except for Sundays.  I snuck in a quick hack on Tuesday evening - hurried thru groom and tack - and went for a nice forward trot around the pond several times.  Riva was happy, alert, forward - and seemed very surprised when I hopped off and untacked her - almost like 'you mean that is all I have to do today?'  I am trying very hard to end before she even thinks about slowing down.

Last night, had to arena ride...I feel awful saying that since many riders would kill for a decent indoor arena.  But indoor is clearly NOT Riva's fav place to be.  Lucky for me, 3 geldings were working also - 2 being lunged and 1 being worked under saddle.  Now bear in mind that last year given this circumstance - I would have elected not to ride Riva.  (since last year at this time - we had no brakes, steering, listening capabilities, etc)  I decided to hop right on - no lunge prior - and put the girl to work.  And she was great!  Very forward - moved off the seat to a nice walk - little leg pressure to trot - accelerated the trot with a light whip (which is new to us - not so long ago, this alone would have caused a buck or swift kick out), halted when asked - did not try once to bite the boys. 

Much, much praise was happening through out the ride.  Sweet girl received hugs and treats before getting put to bed.  I am still afraid to exhale.



4 comments:

SprinklerBandit said...

I know this feeling!! The past few weeks, I've been convinced that Izzy's goodness was just a sham and she was going to whack me with something nasty in short order.

It's hard to accept that they're growing up and just -are- that good. :-)

Lisa said...

This is good! Glad to hear she is going so well.

Achieve1dream said...

Aww that's awesome! She's growing up. :) Sounds like you've had some fantastic rides. That's great. The shorter days totally suck lol. I hate losing my evenings after work. :) I'm glad Riva's being such a good girl.

Emme said...

What a relief for you to know that arena rides are now big just possible, but can work out great. You and Lex have done great with Riva.