Falling for a Girl

That's right, I'm really starting to looooooove my momma mare, Desire. She is so funny and has a very interesting attitude and personality. She is calm and quiet about things I think she might potentially be bothered by (jumping on her bareback, having the baby spazzing around her with the lead rope when I pony, etc) but gets nervous about random things, likes the hose. She is going on 15 this yr and has been an endurance horse so I know she has had endless hose baths and she always lets me spray her, but the sight of the hose still makes go into her 'tense stance' which is really funny, she sort of parks out and eyes it like its going to eat her, but stands perfectly still and lets me do what I'm going to do. Trailwise, I've only ridden her on the little loop inside our big pasture and she definitely eyeballed some things and snorted a little but hasn't shown any real spooks. She has a rub from my stupid girth (ordered the mohair string girth and some wooly covers for my stirrup leathers today) so I decided to ride her bareback this evening. I was a little hesitant to jump on her bareback, just because it was the first time with her and since my accident that initial moment of swinging up on a horse (aside from Blaze) makes me a tiny bit anxious. I used my mounting block and had to do the tiniest hop up to get on her and she stood like a rock and was very unimpressed. Which was great! The filly started trotting after us while she was at liberty, though not all the time, and she seems to be getting the idea about ponying along beside us, even without a lead rope. For some reason Sheza decided as of last night and today that when I get on Desire (this is holding Sheza's lead rope, to practice ponying) its very terrifying and she needs to freak out, which makes mounting safely a little bit difficult. I don't have anyone to hand me the rope once I'm mounted soooo. I worked on it this evening, first I just stood on top of the mounting block and let Sheza get used to that, then I leaned forward and acted like I was about to mount and the filly spazzed backwards like I had hit her or something. Very weird. Once she stopped doing that I finally eased onto momma's back without any more drama. Who knows what little whispers in Sheza's ears tell her that these things are scary! She seems to get over it and learn everything quite quickly though so I am just taking everything in stride and so far really haven't had any issues. The most frustrating thing so far in my first-foal experience was Sheza pulling her touch-me-not shenanigans last week, but she got over that and it really wasn't so bad. Overall I am enjoying it immensely, and really falling in love with my girls!

P.s. riding Desire without a saddle is really comfortable and her trot is sooo smooth, even bareback! Yay!