Slow, easy and chill

Slow, easy and chill has been our work ethic lately, at least at the barn. In my work life, the total opposite is true. Crazy, hectic, busy, etc is my daily life leaving me so stressed out and with little pony play time. Ah well...

Our foggy misty weather. I'm not hating the 40-50 degree days in December, but not sure the ponies agree. 

They are shaggy and wanting cooler weather

 Fatty Laz has been doing a LOT of this...

 He is always caked in mud when I get there. ALWAYS

 We've been still doing either ground work or riding

 I even had one day with a little extra time to play with Red, the little chestnut OTTB.

He's suuuuper smart and a very very quick learner. He's fun

Bareback hack down the road a few times. 

Laz has been comfie barefoot so we are able to do trot work and canter down the road.

His hip/back/pelivs? is not quite 100% and I've been getting him adjusted by his Chiro along with some acupuncture to try and help get him more and more sound.  

But he's been doing SO well and no more tendon issues (swelling/etc)

He was trimmed last week and we opted to not cast this round to see where it leaves him. 

I need to do updated hoof pictures! 

He has been landing so much better on his fronts, heel first! YAY!

 Eating a Christmas tree-yum yum!

 This barn and stone wall just calls to me for photos!!!

 On our alone bareback hacks we still play 'trail pony' and I do a lot of desensitizing and exposure of what I can, when I can. Laz is great. We worked on some canter sessions and he was chill with no playful antics of wanting to buck. I also had pre readjusted his bitless just in case that was causing some discomfort.

 When decorating our Christmas tree, I pulled this ornament that has a baby Mason swimming in Lake Charlevoix, awwwwwwww

9.5 yrs later...angel boy.

Wishing everyone a VERY happy holiday season with zero stress (if possible) and healthy animals!

Gallop into December

Sometimes things can come full circle.

About 4.5 years ago, I had the major ITCH to start riding again. I started looking at horses to lease and found a great person through Craigslist and we totally bonded. My friend Sam had several horses and she wanted a lessor riding  buddy. We are the same age and it was such a fun fit. From that experience is how I met Laz (when he was dropped off at our farm along with 44 other OTTB's HOT off the track to be sold or sent to slaughter)

I adopted Laz, we moved barns and my friend started her own riding barn about an hour away.

We have always stayed in touch and finally had set a date to meet up and ride.

She trailer-ed her 17.2 WB Seeley, and had a friend and her paint pony join in.

4 years later and we ride again

I had rode Laz for a good 35 minutes to warm him up. He's been WIRED lately with loads of TB energy and just keeps testing me with naughty "IMZ SOOO EXCITEDZZZ" squeals and shoulder pops/neck snaking. So much so, that I need to re-align his bitless to make sure we are still 'connected' lol

Off to the trails

 Sweaty boy. 

Laz did quite well being he's never ridden with these two horses OR MET even except for our way to the trail.  He was a bit more drama llama but still lead the majority of the way, but with much more Arab action (snorty, arched neck, prancy moves)

 Ex-Eventer Seeley loooves to RUN and Laz quickly picked up on this and race time was 'game on.'

Not what I wanted or intended. There are parts of the trail where it's fun to canter, but Laz would racehorse LEAPT into a flat gallop the second he saw Seeley getting ready, and I had to use everything to re balance him and bring him down a bit. He was in racer mode which was fine, but he was listening more to Seeley than me at that point, which was not OK.

 Towards the end, as dusk was approaching and I had a pretty wet horse, I had to remind the group "UH, we need to cool these crazy monkies OUT and Laz needs a mental stop on the racing" 

I'm not into having a wet horse at the end of a ride...or having a crazy amped horse during the trail who now wanted to RUN everything.

This little pony was super chill the whole time, lol

 My friend had brought dinner, loads of delic appetizers; hummus  tabbouli  grape leaves, home made fallefal, etc. I brought a bottle of  South African Foodbarn Rose. YUM

 And our ride below;

Not a bad way to welcome in the winter that is soon to approach

Now, I have some training thinking to do, of how to keep Laz interested in trail riding while maintaining his manners and remaining with me as a partner...stay tuned

ThankFULL

ThankFULL

Whew! Our family Thanksgiving is always great. We gather on Turkey day and then re gather causally in PJ's, after shopping, errands, etc to re eat for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. By Sunday my pants don't fit!

Our feast, we all love to cook! 

Two types of mashed potatoes, Stuffing, raw dinosaur Kale salad, Momofuku brussel sprouts , braised fennel, sweet potato and pecan casserole, pomegranate and caramelized onion chutney, cranberry sauce, corn bread muffins  gravy and lastly the piece de resistance; the Jamie Oliver Turkey-a Kelly Bronze   

Earlier that day, I had gone to give thankful kisses to Laz who was enjoying a lazy, sunny day

He helped me refill his water tank ;)

Thanks kind Sir

We took a few nice walks this past weekend. No riding, the weather was a bit wicked and wiiiindy

But I did some major relaxing and cuddling with these monkies

 Mason is thankful for a Frenchie quarter sheet and Pudgie is thankful to lick fur

Hope your Thanksgivings were great!

xo

Big boy pants

Saturday; sunny mid 40's and zero wind=great riding weather so my fellow barn boarder and I set a date to meet. I decide that Laz was looking quite sound and was ready. We had been doing every other day hand walking and he was fine.

Pulling up to the barn, Laz trotted up to the fence.

Now, I've also been feeding him his soaked beet pulp which he adores, so this is more "YUmmz treatz ladee is hur!" than anything else

Groom session for drama llama 

Don't you love how Laz ground ties HIMSELF lol

So, E and her spotted wonder X Justin, Laz and I headed out to our trusty trail loop-down our dirt road

Laz is Mr. I LEAD ALL THE TIMES pony now

Sunshine!! Bliss

Photo opt. I'm annoying at documenting all the goods but I just can't help myself.

Look below, he's even RESTING on his RH-score.

I don't boot him anymore on our trail rides (the ground is totally good/fine for his hooves)

 Below is E and Justin, who are total rockstars. 

Her boy LOVES to jump-they should totally do XC I tell her all the time!

There are many fun downed logs but not for Lazaroo and I

We just admire and watch and take photos which is fine with me.

Maybe one day..?! 

 

So, I tried to track our riding but for some reason my Endomondo kept disconnecting which was SO annoying because we did some trot work, canter sessions and RODE. I wanted to see how fast we went and how many miles.
After about 1.45 hr we decided the day was today.

TO CROSS MILFORD ROAD to get to Kensington Metro Park

It was quick, un eventful and the horses acted like they do this all the time.

It's just a QUICK red light-so you have to cross QUIIICK, with anxious drivers so I'm not 100% comfortable but we did it and it was fine.

I love riding with E because she's chill and funny.  She helps me a lot with my road riding confidence!

And look at this scenery!!

The boys were SO funny. They started getting so excited to ride somewhere new and broke out into a trot and then a full Calvary charge!

We literally laughed the whole time and I said "These boys know us too well"

Along side Huron River

Laz below, showing his ants in his pants

We traded for a bit so Laz could remember how to follow and he enjoyed the mental break and turned into a hound dog sniff sniffing everything

Photo Opts! E and Justin

Me and Laz

What is so great about Kensington is you get to experience (on one of the 4 trails) open fields as well as trails

Laz was very interested in the campers

We walked down to the river...

 Laz locked in on it right away. It's been a year since I took him here

 He immediately started pawing  repeatedly and playing in the water

 I thought "Hey great, ice cold water for his legs mid ride---perfect!"

 Silly boy playing away, then the next thing I knew...

He ROLLED!!!! 

More so dropped down as I was literally saying "Watch him roll (sarcastically)" and he dropped like a calf and laid in the river and I promptly stepped off into knee deep water!

It was actually hilarious!

Fatty was hot and wanted to play in his kiddie pool!

 After our swim lesson, Laz was 10000% recharged!

He was FEISTY!

Here he is saying "NO MOR PICKTURRRRS"

I kept calling him Mule because..well, he was acting like one

We can normally ride 80% of our ride on the buckle but after the river swim, he was ready to FLY

In the field we trotted back to the trails because both boys wanted to RUN and Laz made it clear by squealing and tossing his head that he wanted to really be galloping but he kept his cool after a few stern "UH NO!!!"

 

These two boys love to ride together!

 

 Someone was quite pleased with himself!

All ended well, he remained sound and no re-swelling of tendon.

The next day I cold hosed and put his medicine on just as a precaution 

HOORAH for trail OTTB's

It's a non jumping version of cross country fun!

Right??! ;)

It feels so good to be back on him again!