well that felt odd

I hopped on Lady today. Well first I put my LJ on her and longed her a bit. I don't think she's been longed before, but she was kind of getting it and was being good. Her only evasions were turning to face me and wanting to duck into the stall when she went near the doorway. But no bolting, or bucking, she must be pretty smooth I don't think she made the stirrups bump her any.

I had meant to let her settle in longer before I got on the first time but mom's farrier was out and they were trimming mini's so folks were around if I needed help so I plunged ahead. I felt like a bit of an ogre, she is not very big (and my arabs are 14.2 and 14.3 so its not like I need a huge horse to feel right but she's shorter yet and built thin + needs to put on some weight) but I decided to go ahead and see how she reacted, thinking possibly I would only get her used to the mounting block. I put Grey's sidepull on her and tightened the cinch a notch. --that was her only mis-behavior. She was getting really antsy when I tightened the cinch and moving around, and right into me -I'd put my hand out and move back but she didn't just stop when she connected with my hand. Well I don't let a horse do that, but with her I just tied her short and that was all it took.

Well mounting block work didn't really happen - she was quite nervous of the block and/or having me above her although she only skittered away, nothing dramatic. Mom had walked over so I went ahead and swung up from the ground. She did pretty well, but I actually had to remind myself to breath deep some. She felt like a compressed spring. I could tell that part of that was just her gaiting style but since she had been showing some nervousness too I had to remind myself to breath deep and stay very relaxed. I was only asking her to walk around but she was doing some kind of gaiting; and seemed to be waiting for me to demand serious SPEED or something.

The only part I actually felt a bit of real nerves was when I was going to get off. I stopped her and was shifting my weight, and she seemed to get nervous. So I took 2 times of her feeling too tightly wound and deciding to walk her around a bit more first before I swung on off. She wanted to go when I brushed my leg over her rump dismounting but took just a teeny check with the reins to stop her even with only the sidepull. Then she got a bit of head rubs until she started tossing her head and we walked over towards the gate and she got a cookie. I had her stand right outside the arena gate and munch some green grass while I pulled the LJ off and checked for any rubs. She is still shedding and had some hairs collected where the cinch was, so perhaps she was getting a bit of hair pulling when I was tightening the girth before. Then I put her away.

10 minutes later L had finished up trimming and walked over to look at her and noticed she had opened a scrape on her inside back pastern. So I found some swat and then she demonstrated for him how she acts scared of people. She's funny, I can't scratch on her -she skitters off but she will let me halter her pretty readily. She had a dried owie on her hip and I smeared swat there first to show her it doesn't hurt and then got the pastern boo-boo.