Paid to ride my own horse?

After a crazy busy last two weeks I haven't had much time or energy to ride Charlie. I did hop on here and there just to do something with him, but I knew pretty soon I'd have to get back in the swing of real riding. So when Friday dawned bright and beautiful and Jan suggested using Charlie as the "dummy" horse to help work on herd sourness in one of our training horses, I was like "OK!"

This horse, Coty, has some major issues when he feels he's being left alone while out on the trails so we'd been working with him in hand while I rode Colby, one of the other training horses, practicing each of them being left alone and then rejoining the other horse. Colby is only in a training program two days a week, though, so we can't use him all the time and we thought it might be good idea to try going out with other horses instead. Since I needed to ride Charlie anyway, and we currently don't have any others in training, he was the logical pick.

Not going to lie, I was a little worried. Charlie has been amazing since going on SmartCalm and being at this new barn, but he's had some herd bound issues in the past where he rears and spins, and not having been ridden in awhile was a little worrisome. Plus there were kids out riding four wheelers and bikes in the woods at the same time. Always fun.

But I decided not to be a chicken, threw on my mom's western saddle, and we hit the trails. Charlie was blowing a bit and did a small mount of jigging here and there, but he kept his head. The first time Coty was out of sight he bobbled from side to side, not wanting to move forward. This is his pre-rear move and when I first kicked him forward and wouldn't let him turn around his front feet came off the ground a few inches, but there was no real rear and with more firm and consistent encouragement he stepped off and continued down the trail. He did do a a few low breathy whinnies under his breath (like he didn't want me to hear) which I just think is just so cute. Plus, if he's not doing anything else bad I don't mind a little "talking" :)

At one point Jan asked me to leave them for a little longer so I took Charlie for a short trot and then canter in the field. He was understandably happy with that. In the end it was a successful training day for both Coty and Charlie, and I got paid to do it! How many people can say they got paid to ride their own horse?! :)

Charlie and Leo enjoying the gorgeous winter day