A Snowy Ride

I went and volunteered at Shopping with Santa and then was able to come home and play with the ponies!

Cocoa and Dixie were able to eat in the backyard and try and scrape and get grass all morning so I grabbed Cocoa out of the pasture and took her out for a spin! Just hopped on bareback and we were off....We ended up going on a pretty long ride..we were out for about 2 hours. Luckily it was surprisingly warm and we did a ton of cantering and racing through the trees! We were definitely kicking up some snow! :)

Cocoa did ah-mazing! At first she was a little pokey, but we had to follow the road so that was understandable because the road isn't all that exciting. We did a lot of cantering down the road since it seemed the footing was ok and not too slippery with all the snow. She was offering nice slow canters so that was great! Headed down to the St. Francis Tree Grove and stepped all over the tarps down there and then jumped all the trees they had cut down! Now that was fun! Continued on through the Tree Grove and we jumped a tree branch....Cocoa way overjumped it but I was right with her and it was amazing. When we finally got to the trail we cantered the whole way till we made it to our "Race Track". Cocoa and I galloped around just about the whole thing.....and it's HUGE! We made it all the way around this time and it's even bigger and windery than I originally had thought!

Then we got back on the trail and did lots of vertical flexion and collected trotting up and down all the hills. She got a pretty dang good workout!! We finally made it home after saying "hi" to the neighbors horses and Dixie heard us coming..she wasn't pleased with being left behind but I had wanted to take Cocoa on a long fast ride so Dixie would have gotten too tired.

They got to eat in the front yard for awhile and then I went and brought Dixie down to the round pen for a little playtime right before church. First we did a little bit with the barrel. I had her go sideways over it and then jump it. She didn't want to jump it at first and went a little RB but I calmed her back down and then asked her again and she just LEAPED over it! :) I did the Catching Game with her to start with and after about a half of a circle she wanted to come in and did. Then we just did some Stick to Me...backing by the tail, backing ..from Zone 5 and not using the tail just going by energy!! Sideways towards, picking up all four feet, leading by the lip. Then we had to run back up to the barn so I wouldn't be late!


Savvy Out,
Olivia, Cocoa, and Dixie