Stinker: 1 Me: 1

Yesterday, I was at my wits end with Stinker.  My plan was to do a forty minute ride on the hills at the walk.  We have been really hot lately and not just heat hot, but also high humidity.  I am worried about stressing his system and causing an EPM relapse (I am totally going over kill on this, but I am terrified that I will lose all of our progress with a relapse).  I am probably going too easy on him, but I would rather be too careful than push too hard.

I have awesome fashion sense (I got weird looks going into work like this)

My plan went to heck quite quickly.  He was tense and anxious and didn't want to stretch and give.  I thought I could wait it out because it isn't that uncommon for him to be excited at first and then settle down.  He kind of settled and I thought ok this is working and then the wheels came off.  We were headed back towards the barn, so I thought he was getting impatient and thought he was going to be done.  Normally, when this happens as soon as we get to the barn and then turn away he goes back to work.  That didn't happen.

It kept getting worse and worse and I was getting frustrated and was about to lose my chill.  I know it doesn't go any good, but I wanted to get something half way decent so I could end on a good note.  I finally said fine damn it we will go to the dressage ring.  He typically settles in the ring and by this point the forty minutes had come and gone.  Did that help?  Nope.  Not even a little bit.  Then I got annoyed.  I decided that we were going to trot if he wanted to trot and we would trot until he decided walking sounded like a better idea.

This is actually from Saturday, but it has been really hot

He giraffed into the trot, and I asked him to stretch down (exactly like I had been doing in the walk).  My to my surprise he did.  And then proceeded to give his absolute best trot work ever.  He was reaching and stretching and supple.  Changes of directions yes ma'am.  Shoulder fore and reach deeper yes ma'am.  Slow it down and rebalance with out popping your head up yes ma'am.  We didn't trot long and then I brought him back to the walk.  Asked him to stretch and he gave me nice stretches both ways.

Tired sweaty pony.

I told him he was a good boy (I decided to ignore the previous 50+ minutes and focus on the last 5-10 minutes) and got off.  He was quite proud of himself.  I was in a bit of shock.  I got my revenge by giving him a bath.  He is the weirdest horse, because he hates getting wet.  The scrubbing part of the bath is totally fine.  The getting sprayed equals OMG I am going to die.  He will drink out of the sprayer and try to chew on it, but the water touching him causes some very humorous twitching.

Pretty clean white socks (not worth dying over tho).

I did almost have a very bad moment when I was cleaning his hind socks.  I was crouched down scrubbing the insides when the golf cart backfired.  It scared him and he jumped.  Luckily, I have a strong startle reflex and managed to scoot back, but it could have been very bad.  So my PSA for the weekend is don't be stupid like me when bathing your horse.