Sid Continued and News Thrown in For Good Measure!

Yesterday's post was written at warp speed. Could you tell? I typed it out on my lunch hour with only about 5 minutes to spare. I really wanted to post though. After all, it had been a while!

I reread the post today and shook my head. My goodness but I'm a dramatic blogger. I made it seem like Sid was some kind of wild ride. In reality, he was just feeling fresh. Nothing a nice long longe session couldn't cure. As I've mentioned before, Sid was gelded about a year and a half ago, his de stallion process took a bit longer than one might have imagined, but he seems to be settling into gelding-hood quite nicely these days. During our ride, Casper (whose shenanigans that day warrant another story for another day), was racing up and down the fence line of his pasture, making an absolute thundering ruckus. Sid was a tiny bit distracted by the commotion, but any horse would have been under the same circumstances. His distraction was easily abated by a light tug of the rein and a quiet nudge from my outside leg.


Anyway, I truly felt wonderful to be back in the saddle. I was quite nervous at first because, well...I guess now is as good a time as any to come clean. I'm 16 weeks pregnant. I have full intentions of riding throughout my pregnancy, however I don't want to take any stupid chances by hopping on horses willy nilly and getting taken for a real ride, if you know what I mean.

So, as I was saying, it felt so good to be up in that saddle. As you can see from yesterday's pictures, I had a smile from ear to ear...it was a grand feeling. But then J decided to come on out, which is great aside from the fact that hhe just can't help herself to pick, pick, pick at me and the horse I'm riding. Let me tell you, I have no tolerance these days for her vocalizations.

Sid is a very soft mouthed horse. He needs absolutely no contact to set right up and he is really just a very easy to ride horse. He just goes and looks good doing it. Someone put a lot of time into training him, he even leg yields beautifully. Anyway, there I was and there J was.

"Remember Jenny," she blurted "Sid has a very light mouth. No contact, ya' hear, no contact! Loosen up, loosen up!"

I felt my blood beginning to boil. I had absolutely no contact with the horse. I was directing him with my pinkies and in fact, there was substantial drape in the rein. "Don't let him over set his head, bump him up! He's doing that because you have too much contact on the rein."

What he was doing was actually hesitating to go back to work. As J was walking out to assist, Sid and I were standing in the middle of the ring while I was chatting with some of the young ladies who were out riding Snippy the Quarter Horse. Sid was under the impression that he was through, so when J came out and I decided to put him on the rail again, he acted a bit balky. What he really needed was a good kick, but J assumed he was being held back too much. As I stated above, I had very little to no contact on his mouth...he's just a very curvy, archy horse and he tends to just "bridle up" on his own volition while under saddle. J's never ridden him, so I don't exactly expect her to know what I'm talking about, but still it annoyed the poop out of me on that particular day...I.just.wanted.to.ride. So, another reason why soon, I must have my OWN horse, right? I can't bitch about J's critique too much, Sid is not my horse, but still...just let me ride! I know what I'm doing enough to know what not to do!

Whew, that was a tangent!

The picture below is of Contro and I. This was back in 2002 :) Yes, I often rode and still ride in inappropriate attire. Now I always wear a helmet, but back then....I was a helmetless rebel, always!