Super Soggy Part 1

If anyone, like me, saw the drizzly excuse of our British summer here this morning, and thought to themselves, I'd rather stay in doors, I cannot blame you. Those thoughts ran through my head. Do I really want to go riding in this awful weather? I've ridden in all kinds of weather and pride myself on not being a fair weather rider. I often tease my dad that horse riders are much tougher than golfers, as that's his choice of hobby as many Sunday mornings while the rain is pelting down, dad stays in bed while I trek off to the yard in water proofs. But despite my feeling of yuck, it's pouring with rain, I got ready and headed up to the yard, clad in my water proofs. It hardly relented the whole time I was there today. I was one of the first there so had the choice of all the ponies, when asked, I asked to ride Shadow, and then someone's voice, who I know to be the lovely Magic's owner said, "are you having a change today? You're not riding Magic?" I didn't know she was there so I asked if I could change. I enjoy riding this horse very much as she's teaching me not all horses are relatively well mannered school horses and she challenges me a lot. I'm still being lead quite a lot with her and usually by her owner which I find is quite useful as I gain an insight into this lovely horse's regular behaviours. So as the skies seemed to drain heavily of their rain clouds, I mounted and sat there for what seemed like forever waiting for all the other riders to be mounted. All I can say is, thank goodness for whoever invented waterproof clothing! Getting up the hill on the farm hack was more than a chore today. She was being very strong willed and despite using half halts, she was not being very helpful to our leader. Our trots were very nice although she seemed slightly half asleep on the first few but I highly suspect being cold and wet could have had something to do with it. Because they're saving the fields for hay growing, our usual big field is closed off to us so the only canter we got was on the back lane. It was very nice and collected today. Even though she was being a handful on the cobbles, rushing herself quite a lot and hardly listening to begin with, eventually there was some level of control gained by myself and the girl taking this ride as she took over from her owner, she was being so strong.But by the end of this ride, despite my hands in the beginning slipping a lot on the reins, I did feel I had better contact with her. I decided, as wet as I was, I'd do another ride today and save getting wet tomorrow too. Which in retrospect is probably a good idea as my riding hat is still soaked. I will blog about my second half of the ride tomorrow. Thanks for reading, Marie