Chilly, Lesson #2, surgeon appointment

Yes we survived the storm!  Snow drifts and banks higher than my car, some roads were inaccessible until Friday morning.

Surgeon appointment - He does see bone loss, but its not at the point where he is going to push surgery.  He wants to wait 6 months, get me in some new orthotics, re CAT scan and assess at that time.  Its nice that hes not rushing into this, and giving me time to get used to the fact that hes going to screw parts of my foot together.

I had a great ride on Chilly today.  She was a little fresh on the lungline (she bucked 2 whole times, as in two bucks in total) so D got on her and trotted her around for 2 or 3 minutes.  Then I got on.  I was much more ready for her this time.  I had spent most of my ride on Oscar on Tuesday thinking about sitting back and riding 'behind' the motion a little bit more.  That really helped when I got on Chilly I felt like I was sitting in a much more balanced position.

We worked on her jogging, and steering.  We had no running into horses issues today, we did get too close to the wall at one point, but we didn't make contact and that's what counts.  We jogged both directions, worked on pushing her hips around, jogged some tight figure 8's and had a much more successful ride in our speed control.  She still broke a couple of times from a jog to a walk but I was able to keep her going, and then to get her going again much easier. 

We stopped a bit before the other horse as we were both tired and our biggest problem was reviled.  She doesn't mind resting while the other horse works but she doesn't want to work while the other horse rests.  But we struggled though it, and she finally stopped fighting me with her head and jogged half a circle somewhat nicely and then we ended on that note.

Our clinic is next weekend, so I'm hopefully riding her on Tuesday and Thursday and D is going to ride her Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Thankfully its his week that he only works off the farm one day so cross your fingers that were both ready for Saturday!