Spring training

You may have noticed that there haven't been any ride posts here for a long time. There are several reasons for this, the most significant of which is, despite the best efforts of her care team, Olive still isn't one hundred percent sound. My vet has urged me to continue riding her, and I do, but it's mostly just short, bareback, walk toodles around the property.

More often than not, however, our time together is spent with me on the ground.

We go on a lot of walks, both alone...

and with Karen and Kaffi.

We always try to fit in some training challenges. Water crossings...

and bridges are easy for Olive.

This little wall,

golf course maintenance men...

and the poop bag dispenser are significantly more difficult. Go figure.

We're also learning to better deal with random bits of trash.

Olive wasn't ready to touch this one, 

but she did eventually settle down and graze next to it. Good girl!

Our in-hand schooling sessions aren't limited to the trail. We've also logged some good training hours in the arena. I don't have pictures, but we've worked on mounting block manners, turns on the forehand and haunches, side-passing over logs and backing up. She was pretty good at most of these things before, but with this extra time and effort, she's really leveled up.

Finally, we've been working on a few silly things. These include giving kisses...

and grooming Olive with stable tools.

There's no real reason to curry your horse with a manure fork, but considering how twitchy she used to be around long handled objects this feels useful.

After all, she might someday be asked to carry a rider with a sword.

She's a Buxton horse. Stranger things have happened.

This isn't exactly what I'd hoped for when I got my own horse, but weirdly, it's been surprisingly enjoyable.

Of course, I am still hoping for a return to ride posts in the future, but for now, we're doing fine.