Testing Limits

Today was a gross mess of pouring rain, the kind of day you really just don't want to get out of bed. But I had work and afterward I really wanted to go to the barn to ride because it's been over a week since I'd been on Charlie. Last week it was the pulled shoes, then I was away in Maryland all last weekend for my best friend's bridal shower (which was so much fun!). When I got back and went to ride on Wednesday I discovered that my BO had taken down the temporary fencing separating Charlie's paddock from the one nextdoor so he now had a double wide. Awesome! Unfortunately that meant he actually had room to run around and so, since he didn't have his bell boots on, he managed to pull off the back of one of his brand new shoes. Great. No riding again! The farrier was supposed to come out yesterday - I left Charlie in all day for him - but he got held up so it wasn't until 2pm this afternoon that Charlie was officially rideable again.

When I showed up it is safe to say he was amped: over a week without being worked, two straight days of no turnout, just got his latest loose shoe tacked back on two hours before I got to the barn, it's pouring rain outside, and now he's expected to calmly flat around like it's no big deal? Right.... Oh, and we had to ride in the rock-hard indoor ring (which he hates), the end doors were open, there were some new scary "monsters" being stored in each end of the ring, and two other young riders were in the ring having a lesson. Ha. Hahaha. Recipe for disaster? I chose to believe "great learning experience."

Charlie was high as a kite, but behaving, walking around fairly calmly and looking at (but not spooking at) the new scary objects. That is until we were trotting past one of the aforementioned scary beasties, which happened to also be in front of the open end doors, and he kicked a clod of dirt/stone into his belly causing a meltdown. We would have been fine but when he bucked he caused one of my stirrups to come loose which freaked him out more and, without a stirrup on one side, I got tossed. I got back on and we worked through it, me embarrassed to have made a scene in front of the two moms whose daughters were taking the lesson and Charlie seemingly embarrassed about freaking out as he was much better after that. The other horses in the ring didn't react, Charlie didn't run out the doors (or run over the moms!) and he continued to work afterward doing everything I asked without further issues, even when it meant having the other horses in the ring jump around near him (which I'd heard was a problem for him in the past). 

There were only a few casualties:

From when he threw his head up after losing the stirrup...at least it wasn't my nose!

Yup. That's gonna be a nice bruise.

In other news we have a litter of kittens at work. They're so darn cute :)