Wizard Rides 177 & 178: Movin’ Right Along

Wednesday, 9/8 and Thursday, 9/9

I think next week is going to be The Week: I have plans to trailer Wizard over to the state park for a trail ride with my friends. I’ve never shipped Wizard anywhere, and he has not been off the property in a long time. I have confidence in him, but I’m also feeling a little nervous about it.

I preparation for our adventure, I took him out on the trails on Wednesday night. We were chasing daylight (thank you, September!) and returned to the barn at dark. He was wonderful during the ride. We had two encounters with crazy deer (a bunch were running around in a field and another crashed through the woods)- thankfully, Wizard takes them in stride. We walked, trotted, and cantered on the trails and enjoyed the break from our arena work.

On Thursday, I rode Wizard in the outdoor arenas, warming up in the smaller dressage ring and doing our jumping in the large ring. He was a little tense in his flatwork- I think I might need to do a few battery-charging, suppling sessions with him. But over fences, he was a star. The distances were not perfectly set up (bad me!) but Wizard is getting better with his jumping and was able to negotiate the jumps with more balance and timing than ever before. One time, I rode him in at an awful distance but he gamely took the jump, showing off his honesty, as well as my need to measure these jumps a little better! My mom took some pictures of our ride- I am pleased to see that I’ve closed my hip angle just a little bit from the last time we jumped. I’ve got all the time in the world, so little bits of progress are just fine with me.