Selena Ride 48; Wizard Ride 118: Chaos Theory

Saturday, 11/14/09

Before night fell, Wizard and I went for a trail ride with Mary the Morgan and her owner. We did not do the full loop, but we were out for about 45 minutes. Wizard was quite good. He had a few “oh boy!” moments, but was otherwise nice to ride.

When we returned from the trails, I tacked Selena up and ride in the indoor arena with Mary the Morgan and Miss Tuesday. In preparation for the upcoming hunter derby at my barn, there was a delightful array of creative and interesting jumps in the arena. I expected Selena to give them a good look when we walked into the ring. Instead, she almost seemed more comfortable with them in the ring. Of course, her two best barn buddies were in the ring as well, but there were also other horses who were coming and going.

I asked somebody to slam the arena door loudly to re-create the jumpy moment from the last ride. Selena did not bat an eye. She is not a spooky mare, so I think she was simply surprised (as was I!) when the door slammed on Thursday.

Selena was quite stretchy and ready to work. We did a long walking warmup, followed by large stretchy circles at the trot. We worked into transitions from walk to trot and back to walk. When she felt warmed up, I took advantage of all the jumps and we rode intricate patterns around the fences. She was fantastic. The chaos of the jumps seemed to work out nicely for her. Perhaps it reminded her of her jumper background.