Flying Without Wings

So today couldn’t have gone better I don’t think? My first big task of the day was tackling Kallie’s feet. I wanted to give her a really good trim before we got another dump of snow, and seeing as we had the knife’s freshly sharpened, a brand new rasp and a half decent day I figured heck why not today!? She was easy enough to catch, lead perfectly up to the cement pad that we have in the front lawn (we are thinking the previous owner had it as a door step when he had a trailer there – not really sure.

Chucked a bunch of hay down in front of her and began to trim. She was over-all very good for the trim, she did get a bit fidgety a few time sand tried to pull her hoof away from me so I made her back up and yield her hind quarters and forequarters then stood her up square again. After a few sessions of the yo-yo game she was great and stood well. I took a fair bit back on her front toes, evened them out, got rid of some points, cleaned out her bar, made room for her frog to expand and grow more and lowered her heels.

Then it was on to the back feet (which I am embarrassed to say I never picked up before this session as she had been so stiff when she first arrived and her legs were so sore from the scratches). She was really good for the back left hoof, but when it came to her back right hoof she decided that it would be fun to lean on me. So I had to get Anna to help balance her, by gently pulling her tail to the opposite side and getting her to even out her weight, she quickly was stand on her own three feet and not relying on me as a crutch! On the back I trimmed the toe back a little bit and really cleaned out the bars and made room for the frog to grow.

Gave her lots of rubs in between picking up her feet and making her stand on three legs to give her a break, I also picked at a few of her rain rot scabs much to her disliking. Soon it was time for Kallie to go back, licking and chewing the whole walk down to the paddock.

Blue stood at the gate basically screaming at me, asking that we do SOMETHING. So since it had been awhile since either Anna and I were able to ride (thanks to a combination of the lovely weather and hunting season in the area) we thought that today looked like a excellent day (seeing as the weather was perfect and you aren’t allowed to hunt on Sunday’s!) So Anna headed up the road with her gear to tack up Tia while I got Blue out of the paddock. I haltered him from across the fence seeing as I didn’t plan ahead and switched into my riding boots before getting my horse out of the paddock which happened to be a big pile of mud right by the gate.

He was perfect, shoved his nose right in the halter and let me guide him along the fence line and around the gate without me having to get my boots covered in mud and water! Then up to the barn where he stood ground tied while I gave him a quick brush over before starting to tack him up. As we tacked I played the Seven Games with him, testing him to see if he was “rideable” today. He played all Seven Games like a pro, no warning lights went off at all!

Stood perfectly while I mounted up (I’ve come to realize that I am getting a wee bit stiff, so had to have him down the hill from me to make it easier for me to get into the saddle!). And as soon as I had my butt in the saddle and even thought about moving forward we were walking up the driveway. Blue just felt so loose, so free under me. We soon met up with Anna and Tia along the road and decided to ride up past the big field towards the many logging roads in the area.

Both Blue and Tia had tones of impulsion and were eagerly stretching out and moving forward. Blue was tracking up beautifully, extending with each stride and his back hoof prints in the dirt road were soon over stretching where his front hoof prints had fallen. And he was doing this without clipping his front hooves; it was like riding a cloud. We worked on his head set which quickly fell into a perfect western horse headset and stayed there the whole ride, he was right on the vertical, I could feel that he was rounded and not hollow-backed.

We gave them a good warm-up at the walk, then we trotted a bit, and eventually worked ourselves up to a gallop. The horses were thrilled to be able to get out and stretch their legs. You could tell how eager they were to move forward. They required no real cues to go faster; just the thought of it was enough. Blue was having a blast, he was galloping full out, the wind was blowing through his mane and my hair as we soared over the ground, we moved in perfect unison with one another, neither restricting the other and we just flew, it felt like Blue was galloping on air, he was so smooth, so perfect it was like flying without wings. It was a wonderful feeling and I hope I get to experience it again soon.

When we finally did stop neither horse was huffing or worked up, they easily fell back into a walk, a very impulsive walk, but not trying to break gate unless asked for. They didn’t even break a sweat! Got to love naturally fit horses! The ride home was great, both Tia and Blue were perfect, could not have asked for a better end to a perfect day!