There’s been whispers on the wind that I should ride Griffy and not wait out the rest of the year like I planned. He’s sound now, at least when trotting a couple of circles on the lunge line, and what am I waiting for? He’s not going to get any sounder. This was confirmed with a call from the vet yesterday who agreed he looked sound and said I should trot him in a straight line on the ground and ride him 10-15 min. 4x a week. Well. I guess it’s time.

I’m going to pause here and talk about Anna Blake (https://annablake.com) a bit. She’s a wonderful blogger, author, and affirmative horse trainer. Griffy and I were lucky enough to take a private lesson with her last year on her travels through Texas, and I’ve taken a few online courses as well. She teaches about calming signals – the language your horse speaks. Calming signals are how your horse communicates to you, other horses, everything around them, and when you learn how to understand them, you forge a true partnership where each of you gets input. I consider myself the most base beginner at everything horse, but I’m always trying to learn.

I went over last night with every intention of getting on, but as soon as I brought out the saddle, he got anxious. I went slow, let him see it, sniff it, did a lot of exhales, but he was just…worried. So I decided we weren’t riding that night. Instead, I got him totally tacked up, led him to the arena, and just walked him around for 10 minutes. We did some figure 8’s, a bunch of circles, sniffed the wheelbarrow, I even wore my helmet and climbed up on the mounting block – everything I would have done if I was really going to ride, I just didn’t. After a few minutes he gave some good releases – big blowouts, snorting, licking & chewing – so I think it helped. I’m going to keep doing that until he says it’s ok to get on. It’s definitely made me thankful for the ability to understand what he’s saying – I want our time in the saddle to be enjoyable for us both, but it can’t be if I can’t get his input on it.