The First Day of Winter

Sometimes it's hard to remember summer. It has been raining for a day now with no end in sight. The horses get depressed by the weather too. They slack off on their drinking and eating, and some even get physically sick from the change. Others, like Cleo, can't decide if they are despondent or obnoxious. Today. Cleo was the perfect horse on the ground. She behaved walking from her stall to her paddock and back to her stall. But once under saddle and in the arena, she wanted to be the boss. We rode with our friends Carrie and Artie. Cleo liked being in front with Artie following behind as we walked and trotted around the arena and in and out of the orange cones we set up to practice patterns. But she made it clear she, not I, was in charge. Not okay for a safe and pleasant ride. Artie had his issues too. Lucky for everyone, Emily, our 24ish riding friend, showed up and took a turn on each of our horses. I managed 40 minutes on Cleo and Emily 'finished her off' with a 20 minute trotting regimen of circles and dirction changes. Cleo looked like a regular parade horse. She was round, on the bit, forward, and beautiful. Patrick reminds me it's opnly 90 days until Spring. I remind him I have a mare.......