The first poop

Jellybean here. Just wanted to recap a crazy morning for my adoring fans at home. So this morning Amanda brings me to my breakfast, and I start eating and its awesome. But then, before I can even finish all my hay (I had it spread out for optimal eating position!!) she brought me to the tack up area and started brushing me. It was all fun and games until she brought out the dressage saddle and tacked me up. Oh boy. So I knew what was coming, and I decided to stretch. But of course she tied me too tight and I couldn't practice the downward dog nearly as well as Byron has taught me. So I settled for a stretch with my back right leg out to touch Jeannette, who chose a poor time to walk by.

So Amanda finishes dressing me and we go over to the big arena. She said something about wanting a fence since we hadn't ridden in a couple of weeks. So when we got to the arena I showed her the fence along the trailer parking and gave her plenty of time to look at it. She got impatient though, and started bumping me with her leg so I walked sideways until the next part of the fence I thought she might like. Anyway, then some other pony friends came in. Their riders didn't have saddles and they kept galloping around. I wanted to hang out, but then when I trotted to say hi Amanda made me start circling. Well that was no fun. I don't like trotting circles. I wanted to hang out, so I tried to throw Amanda a little buck to tell her to back off, but then she got really grumpy and started using the dressage whip on my hip. Blergh.

So then the boys and the other horse-friends left the arena and Amanda wanted to canter around. She forgot I am having a growth spurt and cantering around with my downward build and her big butt is exceedingly difficult. So we didn't do too much. But then Amanda wanted to look at the fences again, but this time at the roping chute. There are two sides and then this little cage thing. And its next to a building, so I don't trust it. I just know something is going to grab me. I tried to tell her, but she just kept bumping and tapped me with the whip. So I went in and then as I was leaving something scared me and I trotted away. Amanda dropped her dressage whip, so she jumped down. She then mumbled something about a too big girth and we went back to the mounting block.

I have been thinking about the mounting block, and I had some cool new moves. Amanda was not impressed and kept re-positioning me. Then she finally had to jump onto my back. Jellybean 1 Amanda 0. So then she wanted to walk out to the jump field, which is weird looking right now since there is no fence or gates. I watched Panda jump and canter around, but he wasn't feeling well, so we ended up just walking around. Then Amanda suggested walking around the pond. So we walked over, and she got this crazy idea we should walk through the edge. WHAT WAS SHE THINKING?! Panda told me there was a copperhead in there just the other day, and I don't want a snake bite! So I tried to convince Amanda this was a bad idea. But Panda wasn't scared and he was just standing in the water. But I didn't want to. I drank some water and pawed a little bit, but Amanda kept nagging. I was so worried about being bitten. I started sweating, and then, before I could even control myself, I pooped!!! WHILE AMANDA WAS SITTING ON MY BACK. What has this world come to?! After shaming myself, I finally put a tiny corner of my hoof into the pond and we were done.

When we got back to the barn, Amanda sprayed me off and then tossed me back into my stall. I looked her in the eye and rolled in the clean part of my stall. Ain't no clean ponies here.

Summer is CRAZY

Hi all, summer has started with a bang. After that awesome week of riding the ponies every morning, summer camp hit and my time was stretched extremely thin between work and pony things. But everyone survived, including the students and my ponies. So now we are in the lull before vacation! And I am trying to get some more riding in before the show July 6th. I will be taking Knots in the Goldilocks division, which is a 2'3" division here. Hopefully we can keep learning and go Beginner Novice in the fall. I have also been trying to fit in some schooling rides on Gracie, since she has picked up a couple of annoying habits in the last few weeks. Nothing a pair of spurs and some forward riding didn't sort out, but just another annoying thing to fix. I haven't actually gotten to ride Jellybean in a bit, so hopefully when next I saddle her up she will not have forgotten everything. In any case, some bonus pictures before I leave you until next time :)