Gently keeping my (one) hand in again today with work designed to keep me safe and sane. Today's objective was to get Dottie out on the road, ridden, for the first time and to assess how she felt about that. With David on hand (there's that word again) to assist we worked on keeping Vanessa and Dottie safe and sane too. Dottie, of course, will always be Dottie.
The first stage was to ride in the yard, not a major change of place but enough to lift Dottie's energy and anxiety a little. We used breathing and counting exercises to bring all of that down until she was a lot more settled.
Then, with Dottie on the lead rein, we went off down the lane and back. Dottie was pretty calm except when there was more than one thing in her rear view mirror - such as a bicycle and the horses in the field adjoining the lane which are also at a height above it. Even then her energy didn't ride to more than a 6.5 out of 10. Slowly but surely with two novices.
Having a chat with the two old codgers down the lane from my own horses. Louis and Deedaw have been retired for some years and like to stand at the gate to watch the world go by. I'm still the most grey.
