More on Rachel and Grandma and an Arabian Horse Part 4

The Rachel and Grandma and an Arabian Horse series begins with the original post. Yesterday's post is the beginning of current happenings in the series is More on Rachel and Grandma and an Arabian Horse

For now, anyway, the story has turned into Rachel and Grandma and the Arabian Horses. Rachel bathed the mare yesterday. She is body clipping Hope today for the show this weekend (Saturday and Sunday) at the Western Washington Fairgrounds in Puyallup, WA. (for specific information ) Dandy is really glad that he doesn't have to do showmanship or halter.

It would appear that things are now sailing along on the right track. However, nothing could be farther from the truth. Rachel was not at the barn waiting with the Arabian horse tacked and ready when I arrived yesterday.

I called her to find her still in bed. Instead of just admitting that she had overslept, she gave me a story. Well, more to the point, she blamed it on me. She told me that I had told her I wasn't going to be there in the morning. I knew that she was just trying to avoid responsibility for over sleeping. I gave her the opportunity to make it right, but she chose not to and from there things only went down hill.

I had found the Arabian horse not wearing a stable blanket on this cold morning but went ahead and saddled the Arabian horse.up and began to ride. The horse's muscles were cold and stiff. The ride was difficult.

I took my time trying to warm the horse up but it had took at least three times longer than any of my previous rides to get the horse limber and moving properly in the snaffle bit.

Once I had gotten the horse traveling correctly, I went ahead and put him into the western bridle. Any little problem in the snaffle will get much larger in the curb so once again, I found myself working on stiffness.

It took lots more flexing, bending and moving the horse off of my legs than what I had already done in the snaffle. I was getting pretty frustrated because I had specifically asked Rachel to be sure the horse was blanketed. Much of this stiffness could have been avoided had the horse been wearing his clothes.

After what seemed like forever, I did get the horse going nicely at the jog so I proceeded on to the lope. There things feel apart again. The horse was bracing at the pole, locking his shoulder and going too fast so we again went back to flexing and bending and moving off my legs. I did an assortment of excercises trying to unlock the horse's front end.

While I did finally get a decent lope going to the left, going to the right was another matter. I finally stopped because I was running out of horse. There was no point trying to work a tired horse through muscle stiffness. It just had not been a good ride.

To be continued............

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