Post-Show Epilogue

I gave Indie (unintentionally) five days off, spoiled princess!! because we have had torrental rainstorms every single #$^&*%&!!!! day since dressage rally, the outdoors once again have sea creatures swimming in them, i love sharks as much as the next person but they are not conductive to dressage training.
i did however get to ride yesterday and it was kind of a disaster of major proportions. the sky was perfectly clear when we got there not five minutes later the sky is so dark we had to turn the lights on just to see, at this barn however we have an indoor that can be completely sealed, so off to the indoor we went.
The ride could be summed up as such
Me: "hey indie you remember that stuff we did at dressage rally?? yeah that didn't just magically go away, i know we proved ourselves at first level and showed everyone that yes we are competitive,  but your still a dressage horse"
india: " ?!?!?!?"

Most of the ride was spent spooking at lightning (although i don't blame her for that we had some bigass lightning bolts) and convincing her not to run through my aids.
From a training dressage standpoint
ride = fail
BUT... i kept my temper in check, normally i would have been so mad at her that the other horses in the arena would have been running for cover, which was good when i was riding Austa but not so much for India. Austa was so bad about running through aids to convince her you were serious, one had to be mad enough to spit nails, India however gets mad back, thats her daddy coming out. And when she is mad she has all the other horses running for cover.....sometimes quite literally.
Take for instance one day when we were all practicing freestyles, those of us waiting our turn were just sitting on our horses under a tree and indie was mad because we had had a little come to jesus meeting about the speakers, another horse pepper (also known as the asshole) moved closer to her and she lunged for his jugular!!
scroll up to the picture
read my last sentence
now scroll up again
now read the sentence again
Whaaat?!?
i know she looks all sweet and innocent, but she is not to be trusted!! shes malicious its a wonder i've survived this long.
and then the other incident with a lesson horse where the lesson horse got too close and she tried to double barrel him, and on trail rides she tries to get as close as she can to horses she doesn't like just to bite them!!
So you see why me having a temper is not good. Last ride however i didn't get mad and just kept evaluating her the whole time and i eventually got her mostly sorted out and was happy with my ride. For me this is a big deal, and i'm proud of me and indie. :)

And i also found a treasure trove that those of us with cobs or ponies will apprieciate
http://www.justforponies.com/
its a website just for pony and cob sized equids!!

they even have a dressage section, with a reasonably priced double bridle and children sized dressage saddles, and pony sized martingales (do you know how hard it is to find a martingale for a 12 hand pony that fits correctly) With the emphasis on the cob sized double bridle i've been looking for one forever (not that we need one right now, just for the near future) and the only one i found that was actually cob sized was a really fancy one from a custom bridle shop that was about 2,000 dollars, this one is about 132 dollars, Yeah cheap stuff!!
So definatly go take a look if your horse is vertically challenged ;)


So cute!!