Quarantine day 5-6

Today is going to be a two day blog post, quarantine is not very interesting so there isn’t very much to post about. Yesterday I did get my saddle, a black Paris Tack Dressage saddle with cheese grater stirrups and a really nice girth (which I am hoping fits). I am going to take it out tonight when I go get G settled for the night and hopefully there is no one in the arena and we can try it out. Unfortunately during quarantine I am not allowed to take G into the arena if there are any other riders in there which makes it hard to do any work with him. (The saddle is resting on this adorable toy horse my husband bought for his daughter, it neighs, moves its head and eats a carrot, my 3 year old son is terrified of it!)

Day 5 Quarantine; went out and fed and watered him, made sure there was a nice little pile of straw for him to lay down on incase it gets really cold at night. Bought the saddle and sat in on trainer L’s lessons. I arranged for my trainer T to come to the barn on Friday nights and work with me, on the condition (as the EGSC president says) she doesn’t open an umbrella in a horses face….uhh…. wtf… who on earth would do that. I took out a few treats for G tonight as well but when i try to give him some carrots he looks at me like they are poisoned and moves his head... what kind of horse doesnt like carrots!

Day 6 Quarantine; I spent an hour trying to chip horse manure out of the ice in G’s paddock with a snow shovel since I do not have a pitch fork and cannot use one from the barn. I can’t wait until we are out of quarantine. I also found that if I do not tie G he will not let me pick out his feet, but if I tie him up he will reluctantly let me pick them up and pick them out. We have some work to do on that I promised the ferrier  that by next time he is out G will stand like a gentleman.

I will be going back out tonight and like I said hopefully I can saddle him up and walk around the arena… see how much he remembers from his training last year. T gave me a few great ideas to help with the lunging; First of all I apparently need to purchase a new lunge line since mine is a big thick black rope and cannot be used with bridle and bit, secondly I should try to set up some poles on our circle to encourage G to lengthen his stride and pick his feet up a little more.

The barn is usually pretty empty on Sundays so I will be trying the pole idea then, if I can I will try to take a video so I can document his progress a little better. Right now it feels like we are in limbo because he cant interact with any other horses and we are not able to ride consistently every night… our riding schedule is based off of everyone else’s.