some days...

"Pony" is said as a term of endearment.

Some days, it's a four-letter word.

Today was kind of the latter, at least for part of the time.

I took advantage of getting up early and forced myself to get. out. the. door. in a decent time fashion, versus frittering away the time on the computer.  It paid off...it was 86* driving down to the barn.  Windows down weather!

And it stayed somewhat overcast and not unbearable right up until I was ready to depart the barn.  We even got misted-dripped-dribbled on for about two minutes while riding.  Hard to call it rain, since I think it evaporated before it even hit the ground.  But it was enough "wet" to piss off the pony.  I sort of wish I had a picture of it...we're cantering along, I'm grinning like a loon because it feels good, and she has her ears pinned and the pissiest look on her face, since she is getting wet.

Think "Princess and the Pea" only with water instead of hard little vegetables.

Never mind that 30 minutes later, she was absolutely loving her bath.

She also wasn't thrilled about doing arena work today.  Just for kicks, I turned on one of the GPD apps I have and tracked our time and speed, and to see just what all those circles amounted to.

One hour of riding, walk/trot/canter, 3.7 miles, with approximately the same average speed.  And it's a sand arena...guess those years of circles actually have been good for something.

And she did the whole thing barefoot...without being gimpy.  Which is quite good, for her.  I think I'm finally getting it on her trimming.

It's a sand arena, yes...but it's not necessarily a "clean" sand arena...there's random rocks and deeper spots and harder-packed shallow spots.  Arena, yes...perfectly groomed show arena, nope.  Which makes it a good workout and a good test on the hooves.

And when I say we rode for an hour, we rode.  Circles, gait changes, more circles, stop-go transitions...my show background is never far removed from the surface.  Oh, yeah, and I made her really work at carrying herself in a frame, since she wanted to keep being lazy.  When she's lazy, she really embraces her daisy-clipper movement, which is a polite way for saying she doesn't pick up her feet.

Which means she then trips on one of those aforementioned rocks, or a deeper patch of sand.  Since I'm not a fan of the whole -trip-fall-squish thing, I made her work and actually pick up those little legs.

And then I made it up to her at the end.

Pony swilling Gatorade...her second-favorite
flavor, "Cool Blue"
I kinda love how she's giving me the hairy
eyeball as she grabs for it

Her Gatorade habit started back in my show days, before I had a clue what electrolytes were all about...all of us kids tended to do the "bite for me, bite for my pony" approach to food, and our ponies usually partook on whatever we were munching.  Only Mimi really loved Gatorade, especially the orange flavor.  Her preferred method of getting it was licking it right out of Mom's hand...much better than out of a bucket.

It's actually been years since I've given her any Gatorade, but I had gotten some for me last week during the worst of the heat wave, and brought the last of it down to the barn this morning.  And just for old times' sake, I shared.

Yes, she got the last of it; No, I didn't drink from that bottle afterwards.

Gatorade + a very refreshing bath and Pony Spa session made up for whatever ills she might have been feeling towards me.  Summer itchies + bugs + sweat + layers of fly spray mean that a bath is pretty much a weekly necessity from June-September.  She was lovely and clean when I left, although I'm sure an hour later, she wandered back into the arena and rolled in the sand.  And rolled.  And rolled.

Because she's not happy unless she resembles a pigpen.