Invasion of the Space Horse!!!

Izzy sports her fancy new fly sheet. When I first put it on Friday night, there was mass panic among the pasture horses. Why? Some ethereal apparition was floating along the road to Izzy's pasture. Was it Izzy's ghost? Was it an alien? WAS IT GOING TO EAT THEM???? They galloped and pranced and spooked.

Izzy was just as shocked as they were. I mean, she was walking along the same lane where they said the apparition was. Uh oh! Was it coming for her? What were they all looking at?

Quite the adventure. I like the sheet. No more huge welts on her back from nasty horsefly bites. Izzy seems fine with it, and the other horses have reluctantly accepted her as a fellow equine.

Also, Izzy got her second ride with our lovely backup rider, S.

They started out with some ground work to help Izzy learn to balance and stretch on her own. Ms. Mare was pretty lazy, but did ok. A few more sessions of this and hopefully she'll really start to understand the exercise. Basically, the point is to overbend the horse whenever she loses her balance. Then, when she comes back, she can find her own balance and work through her back better. It's a cool idea and I'm glad S is willing to work with her on it.

Off they go. It was a much better ride than last time, but they still had their troubles. Izzy has a pretty solid training/first level foundation, so S is asking her for some second level type collection--to really reach under with her hind legs, go forward, and carry herself in a shorter, higher frame. Izzy is ready for it and looks GREAT when she does it, but she's still not completely convinced that it's a good idea. I mean, that's way hard compared to giving pony rides to newbies.

Love the flippy tail. Here is one of their better moments. Izzy started well, then had a pretty fancy meltdown in which she pretty much bounced up and down like a pogo stick saying "no i won't go forward eff you you meanie mean meanie bad dressage lady i WON'T GO FORWARD".

Silly mare. She got herself sternly reprimanded for that, which seemed to clear her head, and then they were back to working well together.

They even got some decent canter out of it. Izzy didn't fuss about her sticky-ish right lead and in the end, she'd worked up a nice sweat. Of course, most of the sweat was from her evading and having a meltdown, but still. Some is better than none.

A video from Sunday. Not too exciting, but some nice work. Yay Izzy actually moving around!