Winter Has Arrived

So winter is here and has definitely made an entrance. It's been in the low thirties during the day and low twenties at night this whole week and let's not forget the brutally cold winds. Honestly, it wouldn't be that bad without the wind. Of course with wnter comes the depression at the thought of cold weather riding and chores. But, as always the Showtime Stables crew is bundling up and braving the elements like all other true horse people. With no indoor winter riding is tough, but we make it work. It has put a damper on things though.

The days I have my late classes it is hard to get riding in as by the time I get there it is not only dark but frozen. It gets really hard to motivate to ride and sometimes I can't because it's just to cold and the ground is hard. The old mare deserves an easy winter though so its okay.

We had a great lesson with R last week. Thank God for her indoor! We did more cavaletti work and it went well for the most part. I took Satin to a local farm that is having an indoorn winter fun show series last weekend. We had fun albeit the cold, but Satin was a bit lazy. I knew she wouldn't run full out in the indoor. I don't know why but I could just tell this about her.

Satin is easy to ride and handle in any weather. Hotty, on the other hand, being the typical sensitive, nervous Thoroughbred is not. I don't ride him on very windy days, even when its not freezing. So the freezing temps and wind alone put us out of commission all of last week. The beginning of last week though he gave me a difficult time at the end of our ride. Then the next two days he gave me a hard time coming in from the field. He would plant his feet and refuse to go forward no matter what I did. It took me forever to coax him in a few steps at a time. When I got him the first day I discovered her was very stiff in the hocks and short stepping in the front, so this issue put us off too, but was resolved in a few days. The second day I had to use bribery to lure him in. He has been better coming up, at feeding time at least. Though the wind and cold has made him frisky and he spent part of the walk in flying sideways and backwards earlier this week at feed time. We are in for a warmer weekend so I hope to get him back on track before a very cold week next week.

In other news we are nearing the end of a semester, a joyous and painful time. I am happy for it to be almost over, but with the end comes lots of work between final papers, projects, and exams. I am forging my way through a little at a time, but wont be free until my last exam which is of course the day before Christmas Eve.