Annie's Magic Touch

MEGAN: After the usual turnouts, feeding, and arena work, I cleaned Simba’ stall and dumped the wheelbarrow backwards going up the ramp, successfully covering myself in dirty shavings from head to toe. After shaking out all my clothes in the bathroom I then tacked Simba up and Annie got on him for me. She did lots of little leg-yields to get him to give, and isolated her legs- getting him to move off just the right or left instead of using them together and giving him more of a chance to resist. Also, haunches-in to a medium in the canter helps to loosen him through his whole body, and gets him thinking more forward- a challenge, as we all know. When I got on I had trouble isolating my legs and trying to use too much inside rein in my leg yields, but by the end we got some super medium canter and when I sat back, better quality of the canter overall. After cooling out, I did laundry and cleaned up in Mica’s barn, then rode Melos. I should have ridden him in a lesson, and due to my mistake, we didn’t get much done, though avoided the spooking and jumping around of previous rides thanks to scary trailers. Bathing Melos took just a few minutes, then I scooped dinner in Mica’s barn and we had a very helpful chat. Hacking Caspian was fun- he was a bit intimidated by the geese in the pond, but Eva and her horse Brou walked with us and prevented spooking at the vicious geese. Many thanks! He got a bath as well, then I cleaned Simba’s stall (more successfully this time) because he moved back to the Hunter barn. Hannah and I fed over there, and I cleaned out the wash stall. Upon arriving home I talked to Lendon, then went for a run. After a shower Hannah and I made dinner- her Uncle’s meat sauce, noodles, biscuits, creamed spinach, and sweet corn. Hannah and I cleaned up, and I organized all of Lendon’s CD’s. That has been my day. Until tomorrow!

SIMBA: Wow. Mom is really catching on to the fact that there are other ways to help me- and in helping me, help herself. Annie, who used to ride me, got on me today and helped me to bend and go forward. Mom in your warm up, you need to bend me more, go forward, do lots of little leg-yields, and think of being able to do a medium at any point in the ride. Phew. That is lots to work on. Think you can do it, Mom?