Ode to the Amazing Ruby

Heather and I had been planning this for two weeks - in fact, we were supposed to go last week but family drama (usually known as sick kids) caused us to reschedule last week.  So, this week, I was really looking forward to going down to Lithia to ride with Jennie.  This was to be the first time that Jennie's seen Ruby since dropping her off at the end of January and I was excited to show her our progress.

Wednesday night, I get a text from Heather - son isn't feeling well, she'll let me know in the morning if she can go, but I can use her trailer if I would like.  Hmm. I haven't driven a loaded horse trailer in several years now and I have no idea how Ruby hauls when by herself.  I go to sleep crossing my fingers and hoping that Heather will be able to go...

Thursday morning dawns and I shoot her a text.  Son is going to have to go to the doctor - time to put on my big girl panties.  On the way to the barn, I'm imagining all the things that could go wrong, flat tire, horse falls and is trapped, rear-end someone or have someone rear-end me.  Get Ruby loaded up and off we go.  It probably took me a good 20 minutes to settle into the drive but eventually I did, and everything was pretty smooth sailing.

I got to Jennie's barn around 10:30 and there was a crowd milling about, apparently waiting for me!  It was cold and windy and Ruby was very up.  I considered round-penning her but the round pen was extremely slick and muddy and all of these people were waiting, so I tacked her up.  After mounting  (she stood stock-still, good girl!!), we did some circles and walking around and she was good. Setting off, she took the lead.  She was very brave and bold, not a single spook the entire ride.  I did discover that she will do whatever is necessary in order to avoid stepping in puddles, so we'll have to work on that.  Whenever we would get too far ahead, we'd would do a few circles to let everyone catch up.  We went down by the Alafia River, then headed back to the barn via a different route.  I am very jealous of Jennie's trails, wow.  Very easy to follow, well-marked, less than half a mile from the barn, through the woods so there is a ton of shade *sigh*.  Anyway, to sum everything up, we had our best ride yet.  Ruby was absolutely fantastic. 

What the other riders saw most of the ride - Ruby butt!  Photo courtesy of Jennie

After yesterday, I'm sure that she is ready for the 15 mile intro ride tomorrow, but things have come up and everyone has decided they're not quite ready.  That's ok, there will be plenty of other rides.  Heather and I are hoping to ride tomorrow, crossing fingers.

Nearly forgot to address something that was mentioned in my last post - Ruby's head throwing.  I did a lot of research and found out that the s-hack sometimes causes a horse to carry their head higher than normal.  For the last two days, I've been using Heather's side-pull and we have had no more issues.  In fact, I have discovered that she naturally likes to carry her head fairly low.  Looks like I'll be trading my s-hack in for a pretty blue side-pull in the near future.