There will be pictures, I just have to make them.

At some point.

In any case, there was a full crew at the barn yesterday! I got done with chores and breakfast in time to work with Fred a bit in anticipation of his "trial" with a girl who responded to Dennis's free lease ad. Call me skeptical at the time, but I figured I better get in some groundwork so she stood a better chance of not getting killed. So... we did that, it went well, and Fred thinks I'm the Blonde Beotch from Hell, who only shows up to make him work. Eh, it is what it is.

Then I had some spare time, so I worked Jovi on the lunge bc his mom works a lot and asked me to ride him. Mind you, this horse hasn't been ridden in over a year, so I'm still not sure where his tack is.. and I felt bad working him under saddle when he has such poor muscle tone. Poor boy. So... we worked on the lunge for 20 minutes at a walk and trot. I found out he doesn't have a walk, so we worked on W/T transitions- even better for building muscle than just trotting around and less strain on his joints! He's such a good boy!

THEN Fred's rider (Kelly) showed up, and Jeannie, and Nicole and Corey! Full house! While Dennis told Kelly all about the Muley One, Nicole and I tacked him up, and she did some more groundwork with him. (She's the Brunette Beotch from Hell. LoL), then hopped on and she warmed him up W/T, while I threw down some cavaletti for Sherwood's future workout. Mind you, Nicole and I together are kind of... a bad idea. We just egg each other on to do more and more stuff. Watch the progression.

Nicole: "Oh, I'll just trot him around a bit and make sure his steering is still there from when we last worked him (last summer)."
Me: "Okay!"
Me after watching her trot him around for a bit: "So... cavaletti?"
Nicole (pondering): "Yeah, okay!"
Me: "I'll just put 2 down."
They go over it a couple times, he gets the hang of it, and...
Me: "Three?"
Nicole: "Sure! why not??"
And there we had Fred going over three cavaletti for the first time ever, on his first ride of the year. Lovely!

Later...

Me: "Hey Nicole, while Fred's busy with Kelly- she's doing great with him!- wanna hop on Sher?"
N: "Hells yes! I wanna see what you're bringing to the show grounds next weekend!"
A(me) after tacking up, Nicole warming her up, and watching them trot around: " So... we've been working on crossrails... Wanna try?"
N: "Sure!"
Long story short, because I'm sick of typing Ns and As and quotation marks!

I gave Nicole a whip because Sher was just being so.. Sherwood, which did the trick on the ground but prompted her to run out after her fences- Gah!! So Nicole got off and I hopped on with the whip, and immediately felt the difference in the Marish One- jet fuel!- so promptly dropped the whip and tried the fence (loose term for a 12-18" crossrail). No more running out, but still plenty forward on the flat. Yay!

Then we raised it to a 18" vertical, which was actually 2' bc whatever idiot made the fences (*whistles, looks away*) made the 18" mark at 22". Now, who can't use a ruler these days?? Honestly. We need to hire better help.
And... lo and behold, Sher likes her fences bigger! There's a bascule hiding in there! Who'd a thunk?

And onto today- we started with a crossrail, then put up one in a line, then raised one of them to a vertical for the last 2 jumps. Probably a total of 10 cross rails and 2 verticals. And you want to know who was an ANGEL through all of it? That's right. That'd be MY Sherwoodigans. I may have to stop calling her that... Hah. Let's not jump the gun!

Who we then promptly asked to step her front feet onto our makeshift mounting block (4'x4'x16" tall) and leapt on top of it, then fell/stumbled off sideways. (I made her do it again the right way after that. Damn these groundwork people making me think my horse is a mountain goat! See what happens?!)

Yes. I want to take this mare cross country.

I think.

Wish us luck in our Cross Rail Hunter classes next weekend!!