LittleBig Mare

I have decided this is Stella's new reference name. She shall now be referred to as "LittleBig Mare" AKA LBM. This largely because she herself is not a big girl, but when she wants to, she can do big, big things (or have a big, big attitude...or pitch a big, big fit...you get the point.)

She was wonderful today however. The weather was shitty, it was raining sideways (borderline snowing) and absolutely freezing, probably no more than 40 degrees but with the wind it felt like 20. It's been downpouring since early last night and so, consequently, there is a small lake in front of both horse's stalls. Neither will venture through it to get to the paddock, so they've sat in their stalls all day. Ernie doesn't really care, he likes to conserve energy when possible, so I just groomed him today and we had some stretchy time.

LittleBig Mare, however, is not so thrilled when she's stuck with no form of exercise, as she has demonstrated this past week. She's fine being left in a stall (so long as there is food...), but when you take her out, her mind goes "weeeeee!" out the door and it takes you a while to rope her back in. I figured in order to best prevent that, despite feeling generally yucky, having to deal with a wet walk up the driveway to the arena and having a very, very sore body after getting wrecked in our game on Thursday, I'd go long-line her.

Boy, was that awesome (no sarcasm, either)!

She was very forward and very "Oooh, what's that? OOOOH, what's THAT?!" but she kept her head on her and was generally happy to have something to do. I got a gorgeous trot and canter out of her both ways, and after about 10 minutes she started to get more supple and relaxed and the good kind of forward. I even got a comment from Lori, my trainer (who was teaching another lesson while I was in the arena) about how lovely and mature she was, and how impressed she was with how far LBM has come. Yay!

The weather sucked, and still sucks. It's colder than a mother, but the ponies are tucked in the barn with big piles of hay, so all is well.