A collection of all of the random tidbits (most of which end up on Facebook or Instagram)…none that really justify a full post of their own, but collectively, enough for me to justify sitting down and uploading media and chattering on for a bit.

I hit a new level of neon visibility with my tights. These particular pairs are from Ride Boldly, and I love them. They’re completely custom made to size, and they fit me the best of probably any of the tights I own. Plus, they’ve got two large cargo pockets, one on each side, that easily holds a phone. Tested one pair out at the Grand Canyon ride, and they passed with flying neon colors.

Playing around in the arena. I think I was messing with my camera’s timer feature…I have very little media of me riding, aside from ride photos, and need to figure out a way to get some more. I’m drooling over the idea of the SoloShot3 automatic tracking camera, but the budget decrees that the price point on that level of spiffiness is going to have to come down significantly. Maybe a basic tripod/remote/phone set-up would be in order.

Cranky pony a couple weeks ago. She was in a mood and half, and we spent a solid half hour schooling manners when she got all kinds of rushy and gate sour. We were both hot, tired, and filthy by the time we were done. She never lets me get too complacent or bored, that’s for sure.

Happiness is: tack ho’ing. New stirrup leathers (that smell so good…I adore the smell of quality leather goods) for the dressage saddle (to replace the non-matching brown ones above, and so I can stop playing round robin among my saddles with not having enough stirrup leathers to go around) and a new bit for the pony. (Myler loose ring MB33WL, which is a lower, wider port version of the MB33 mouthpiece that’s worked very well for her.)

First time in the new bit today, and she loved it. For a pony who thinks the purpose of bits is to deliberately lean on them, she was amazingly light and soft in it. No clue how she’ll do in it on trail…but that’s what her s-hack is for anyway.

Obstacle course play day at the barn today. Fun chance to play around with all of her bells-n-whistles buttons that I spent years installing. Just a few minutes of tuning her up and she was phenomenally responsive and eager. Although she still thinks the point of caveletti is to deliberately hit them.

(I was super proud of her stepping up on the box, too. She doesn’t particularly like it, and it often involves scrambling and flailing on her part. But today she was happy enough to step up, stop, and stand quietly.)

Super-happy pony by the time we were done today. She looks so ridiculously cute in her tack get-up, too. So perfectly coordinated and matchy-matchy. Once an endurance pony, always an endurance pony…

And I like seeing that kind of happy expression on her face. I know she’s getting old, and aging…her quality of movement definitely isn’t the same, and I know she’s got some arthritis happening. (No surprise, she is 25, and has lived an active life.) But as long as she’s serviceably sound, happy, and wants to keep working, that’s what we’ll do.

You’d think that after two decades of being together, Mimi and I would have a seamless partnership. In part, that is true. I know, for example, that she is probably the overall best horse I will likely have in my lifetime. I may have others in the future that end up better in some specific regard (more suited for 100-mile endurance rides, for example), but as far as the overall “hit every box for what I need and want in a horse,” she’s set a really high standard.

The danger of a 2-+ year partnership, though, is complacency. Of late, I’ve been guilty of just “going through the motions.” When you’ve “been there, done it all” and there’s nothing new on the horizon, it’s easy to slip into a mode of boredom with a side of “don’t give a damn.”

And she deserves better.

I owe it to her — 20+ years of packing my butt around and putting up with my shenanigans and foolish ideas — to still keep pulling my weight. It’s hardly fair to expect her to put in a good performance when I myself could be accused of being “barn sour.”

Yesterday felt like an eye-opening refresher. I had access to the big pasture, so rather than subject her sometimes-questionable mechanics to the soft sand and tighter turns of the area, we were able to have a lot more room to move out (getting and keeping her momentum up seems to be the trick now in getting a reasonable canter out of her), and she didn’t have to work as hard at lifting her hind toes on the harder-packed turf as she does to clear the softer arena sand. Case in point: she didn’t trip or stumble at all yesterday.

As for myself, I’ve gotten so caught up in paying too much attention to fine details and minutiae that I’ve forgotten to to just sit up and ride. As a result, I’ve gotten more and more tense, overthinking and trying to force the issue, letting myself get into a downward spiral of believing I don’t know what I’m doing and don’t really know how to ride.

I don’t really know what changed, but a couple weeks ago, I had glanced at one of my ride photos I have hanging on my bedroom wall, and my takeaway impression was “What are my lower legs doing?” A closer look at some of my other photos all revealed the same consistent error. Apparently I’ve forgotten I have lower legs, and that they have a job to do in the saddle.

Lightbulb moment. Way too much gripping with the thigh/pinching with the knee, not enough “heels down, lower leg as a solid platform under you.” No wonder all my ride photos have me pitching forward, with lower legs swinging back. I’ve gotten so comfortable in my defensive, curled over, “cling like a monkey” default riding style that riding centered actually feels like I’m in a chair seat.

So the past couple of weekends have been spent paying attention to the basics of keeping my lower leg solid and under myself, with a side order of “heels down, shoulders back, eyes up.” Y’know, all the stuff I learned as an 8-year-old.

And wouldn’t you know it, as long as I kept a solid lower leg in place, everything else just came together as it should.

This is why my pony should be sainted. 20+ years later, she’s still tolerating me with good humor.