Road Trip

Last night was the first road trip since last fall for Megan. We had done some practice loading, but the couple of excursions we'd tried to do for fun over the winter had all fallen through. Despite only having a trailered a handful of times, she loaded right up happily and off we went. Thank goodness! Having spent hours fighting with recalcitrant loaders before, it's nice to have one so cooperative. She did sweat pretty heavily on the short trip over, so she was clearly fretting a little.

Once we arrived she unloaded a little high, but very reasonable since she hasn't been off the farm since September. I stuck her in a stall to calm down a bit. Her first order of business was to roll and then stick her head out the window and pull up some of the landscaping. Doh, food first of course!

I tacked her up to lunge a bit. She could hardly go forward for being such a lookie-loo. There was some construction noise behind bushes on one side of the ring that just had her a little fried as did the jumps. After 10 minutes on an egg -- no way she was going to the end of the line near the bushes -- she was still up but clearly not going to settle any further on the lunge. Ricky was ready to go since time was ticking away toward American Idol. Lol. He walked her around the arena a few times. One big startle near the fenceline with the construction nearly undid the other horse in the ring, but everybody mostly kept their cool.

Ricky asked me for a leg up. Now I don't really DO legs up. I can't seem to grasp the fairly simple concept. If I get one, I end up flailing about and half on and if I give one it's usually the same result for the poor soul that asked me. Sure enough Ricky ended up just laying across her which was actually his plan, but nonetheless I got Katherine to step in for the real deal while I held her horse. Once he was up, she looked tense but not unreasonably so. I'm sure she felt potentially explosive, but she never did.

She was once again not terribly forward and looked really out of balance. Seeing her under saddle really makes her look like the baby she is. It was fairly eye opening to see her next to the other horse. He was no small animal -- 4 year old Hanoverian just over from Germany. He is probably every bit of 16.1 or 2, but Megan is clearly just larger over all. It finally dawned on me what a big horse she is going to be. To which Ricky replied that he had said that the first day he met her. Yeah, but I was in happy denial where I would have liked to remain... darnit.

This was not the ride to admire her grace and beauty. She was falling all over the place between not knowing how to steer and being such a lookie loo. It didn't look like a fun ride or pretty! In fact at one point as Ricky was urging her into the canter, my comment was "Rack On". Not what you hope for in your dressage/event prospect! She wanted to stop every time she came by where the other horse and I were standing so it took a lot of urging to keep her moving. She did stand quietly while Katherine cantered the other horse over some jumps. Other than chewing the bit excessively she was happy to be a sofa for Ricky while he directed Katherine. That was an improvement from the fall, when she reared up one day while the trainer was sitting on her talking to some other riders he met on the trail. She can be rather impatient, so she'll have to learn to chill at times.

She walked, trotted and cantered both directions several times and while she never became nonchalant she did very well for first time off the farm. After the ride she stood tied to the trailer while I put on her shipping boots and then loaded right up again like a charm. She looked quite proud of herself when we got back home and I'm sure she slept well after all the new adventures. She got a nice bath and some carrot stretches and lots of pats. Another good day for the baby girl. Tonight she'll have off and then a nice ride at home tomorrow night. Let's hope this continues to go as well!

One other note, she looked completely sound last night. The new shoes seem to have eliminated the NQR moments which is very good to see.