Or however many rides as it’s been since I’ve actually blogged.

There seems to be 2 Nay Nays out there: Good, perfect, willing Nay Nay and opinionated, angry, energetic Nay Nay.

Neither Nay Nay really does much wrong, but Good Nay Nay is my preferred ride where as Angry/Opinionated Nay Nay is a little more unpredictable and makes me work harder.

A couple weeks ago, Angry Nay came to play. Leading up to my lesson, I just didn’t ride enough (lacking motivation) and Nay Nay, enjoying his time off, was a bit bitter about this “work thing.” A normal horse might try and buck you off or take off or be fast. Nay Nay doesn’t buck. In fact, he was pretty quiet. But, instead, he put all his excess energy into spooking. And by spooking, I mean, getting distracted by various things like cats because, Nay doesn’t really spook either (he did at the end of the lesson when some crazy farm equipment came speeding down the road — he was fine once he saw it). But, scary invisible cats just… Yeah. So cats plus just not feeling the ride? Not good. He decided he didn’t want to jump (we got over our outside line) and then he decided he under no circumstances was jumping the inside single. Not because of the jump, just because he didn’t want to. So we fought it out and he got angry and lost. It had NOTHING to do with the jump, but it was that kind of day. His brain hadn’t been engaged enough leading up to the lesson and yeah.

Post lesson, I decided to put my sweaty horse into boot camp. We working Friday-Sunday plus Tuesday and I had a very perfect horse. He was happy, quiet, but annoyed with this work thing. Yet, perfectly awesome to ride. Then, because, adulting, we skipped a lesson that week, and resumed riding this past weekend with rides Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday? The outdoor was a bit mucky from rain, but despite that (and a lunging horse at the start of the ride), Nay was a gem. I mean, he is a wild thoroughbred as all videos will show (my husband has retired again so enjoy video until he un-retires in 2-3 months). But, completely, utterly perfect thoroughbred. Showing shades of growing out of his green been status.

Sunday? It was windy and ugly and I rode inside because, why not? Ride started perfectly with a quiet horse. We jumped some fences as part of our flat work (I like to incorporate some crossrails or tiny jumps into flat work just to spice things up and all was good. Then, later, we jumped a small jump on the diagonal (we’re not jumping much, just a handful of 18″ fences that we usually trot over and then 2-3 2’+ fences that we usually also trot and maybe canter 1-2 18″ fences) and things went… array? You see, he landed on the wrong lead, no problem. Except, he landed, balanced, and when I unintentionally touched my spur to his side, someone decided to toss in a full change. Then, he did it again the next time we landed without any accidental cues. Then, he decided he could toss his legs all over the place because he’s awesome like that… Not that his legs go anywhere because he’s not athletic, but….

So, the rest of our ride was spent dodging legs and remaining vigilant, and getting out excess energy because a certain bay horse suddenly was feeling very full of himself… He didn’t toss in anymore changes, but he did think about it. I don’t plan to try any on my own (I’d like help for those thank you very much!). After I finished some work and a particular display of… leg flinging, we ended up trotting for 20 minutes to end and cantering a few times around each direction without acrobatics before we ended… Despite all of that, he never came close to unseating me and I don’t think he was trying. There was no buck in there, but lots of front leg flinging… I wish I had video of that.