Quick Bareback Ride Before Work

Olivia   February 13, 2015   Comments Off on Quick Bareback Ride Before Work

On Wednesday I hit snooze so many times that we gave up, reset the alarm for later and went back to sleep. So we did not get to the barn. Thursday morning we had to go clean and feed so we just needed to get up a bit earlier to ride. I still managed to hit snooze a few too many times so we only had time for a quick bareback ride.

Nilla is still a bit too unpredictably for me to be terribly comfortable with bareback, but she was mostly good. I lunged her around a bit as she hasn’t been ridden in a week. She hopped about with a lot of energy, but settled enough for me to think I could get on and not risk being bucked off. We rode around the little arena for a few minutes and then headed up to the upper arena. Shasta decided a wheelbarrow was scary and Nilla decided Shasta being scared was cause for concern so I hopped off and walked up to the upper arena.

Once up there, I had to get my husband to help get her to stand still so I could get on as the upper arena mounting block is too short for me when bareback. We rode around working on bending in circles and going straight – really exciting stuff, let me tell you.

My husband wanted to run down the trail, but I wanted to not die so I stayed behind in the ring. Nilla proceeded to have a little meltdown because she had been left behind and clearly the wolves were going to close in at any moment so I hopped off. Nothing bad, but she was starting to think about climbing the hill surrounding the arena and I figured I wasn’t going to stay on without a saddle.

Very concerned about her apparent abandonment

I hopped off and took pictures of the very concerned mule until my husband got back. He appeared with his bareback saddle wrapped around Shasta’s flanks. It had apparently slid back while he was riding out so he came back earlier, but didn’t think he should get off and fix it or anything. I didn’t get a picture because I was busy yelling at him to get off. The bareback pad was basically wrapped around her flanks exactly where a buck strap would go.

I don’t know why Shasta was tolerating this. Let’s just say, she’s a good horse. 
We walked back down, untacked them and turned them out to roll. The owner’s dog and one of the tenant’s dogs were playing in the small arena when we turned them out. Shasta took off after the black lab and Nilla went ofter the golden retriever. I really wish I’d gotten a picture as it was like they planned the division of labor by color.
Terrible quality iPhone shot, but the golden is in the shade on the hill