Walking on (rainy) sunshine

I do love google plus auto awesome gif images. Especially since I take so many photos to create a series like this haha. 

So I pulled up to the yard as Sarah and Franks were crossing the road in the drizzling rain to go out for a hack. This is it. Today's the day. Another friend had just pulled up, so I asked if she was planning to ride, and it was a maybe, depending on if it started to rain more heavily or stayed the same. I was riding, no matter what. Instead of poo picking first to let the drive go, I just went straight down to the field after a quick chat with a few of the yardies, and got him in.

After a quick brush, the drizzle had started up again, so with my friend still down at the fields, I grabbed the saddle, took a deep breath and tacked up. Sarah and Franks got back, so I let them head back off around the back before I put on his bridle and mounted. Millie was sat in her car and gave me a little thumbs up as we marched off up the drive, and we were off! 

The rain inevitably got worse as we got out onto the road, but darn it we were doing this. I avoided taking him out on the field on the way out as it's the first time I've ridden after his legs have been clipped. He's still adjusting to being able to feel things brushing across his legs where his feathers would have been before. Having said that, I walked him through the long stuff again on the way up and he was very good, only flinching twice.

We did the short loop around the village, and he had a good pace. I felt surprisingly relaxed, and was focussing on chatting away to Rio and keeping my heels down. I adjusted my left stirrup to be one hole longer and felt far more secure. He was busy having a good nose around, but I was happy with his responses to what I asked of him. He stopped when I asked, he moved on when I asked, and for the most part, stood nicely. The only exception being the slightly busier corner junction on the way back, where he just fidgeted around a few steps, but still didn't do anything stupid.

Here's the best bit. I bit the bullet and we rode back across the field. He jogged a little coming through the entry onto the field, but I sat quietly, waited for him to settle down and he did a little bit of a half passing walk across a third of the field, and then walked very nicely after that. Franks and Sarah were walking back down to the field as we rode up the last bit, so he made sure they knew we were coming home. He has the girliest whinny! He called out a couple of times around the village, such a sweetie. 

We survived!

Ride / play safe x