Early summer

The weekend and the days after have been wonderful, with summer temperatures.
Both horses and riders are enjoying the possibility to cool off in the creek.
In the photo my daughter and her pony are enjoying themselves.
When I later came home I found her boots turned upside down to dry out at the entrance, and I guessed what had happened...she had "accidentally" taken a bath.
Huh.
Not much "accidentally" involved there, if you ask me.
The grin that followed her statement confirmed my hunch.


I took Fame out hacking again on Monday.
Due to her damaged tooth I used a bitless bridle, but I am not satisfied with the function of it.
The crossing straps below the chin don't run as smoothly as they should through the rings, so they stay too tight. She actually got a bit chaffed on one side afterwards. Might be that a twisted strap caused it, but anyway.
I worked her in canter intervals up to the top and in spite of the warm temperature she was forward and happy to work.



At the top I got off, loosened the girth and walked her down. It is green everywhere now, so Fame enjoyed some grass stops along the way.
I got warm though.
Come to think of it, I actually prefer riding in the winter to the summer.
During summer time it is too warm, the ground gets dusty and hard, and the flies and mosquitoes are not making things better.
We put our horses out on pasture each summer, and get some time off from training all of us.
We have no grass available at the stable where our horses are kept, so I have a major happy moment each year when we let them loose on grass. The horses get so happy, and I get all warm inside!


A bit of the path leading back to the stable is washed away by water and rain, creating a ditch which is getting wider and wider.
We usually jump over it on our way back.
Fame was willing, but surprised over how wide the ditch had become - which created a frog leap over.
Frog leaps are a bit awkward to handle in a dressage saddle , so when we landed I was a bit off balance, and at that moment she threw in a giga buck, happy with herself to have crossed the scary ditch.
Guess who was an inch of getting recoiled out of the saddle at high speed?
Somehow I managed to hang on, growling a big NO! to prevent further happy demonstrations.
She behaved, and just cantered on some meters before I regained balance and could slow her down.
Silly thing.