There are lots of blog posts in my head; they’re just not making it onto the blog.

Where are we now?

Polly has been the reliable lead trail pony all summer. On one hand, we haven’t gotten nearly the miles in that I once hoped we would. On the other hand, things are going pretty well.

– We can open two of the three gates on trail (one both directions, one really inconsistently going home but fine going out) and haven’t done much trying with the third gate, which requires some maneuvering we just don’t have yet.
– Her stand-for-mounting is.. well, better than it was, but still not great. I suspect once I get on more gracefully some of that will resolve.
– She pauses and alerts to things on trail, both wildlife and people. Probably horses too, but we don’t run into many. Most of the time she’ll think it through and offer to walk on when she’s ready.
– Walk/trot/halt is solid in both the arena and on trail. Staying halted is hard. That will come with miles.
– On days she has too much energy, she’ll tell me. Recently she did a big spook heading out on trail, so we did a quick round pen zoomy session and then went back out and she was fine. Generally she tries to hold it together and just giant-power-walks on the way home; we’ll end those days with a round pen or turnout/arena zoomy session.
– Her round pen work is still super solid for what I’m asking of her, and she’s the easiest to work of my/friend’s horses at the barn. Absolutely still room for improvement, but I’m happy with where she’s at.
– I rode bareback and in the dark in the arena during our heat wave, and she was fine, and I was fine.
– She’s still somewhat herdbound to her friends, but we’ve also had rides where we split off and it wasn’t an issue. Something to watch and keep working on.

Things I have learned about Polly:
– She’s sensitive. Everything is sensitive.
– I need to buy her boots. She doesn’t like the rocks on the trail one way, and that limits where I can comfortably take her.
– She needs a fly mask, else her eyes get watery. She’ll mostly keep it on.
– She’s sensitive and so itchy. We’ve been dealing with hives(?) on her hind legs on and off all summer. This probably needs a blog post.
– I bought her a fly sheet. Said fly sheet now has holes. Future post to come on fly sheets, because goodness I have words.
– I pulled out the riding fly mask I used for Fetti once and that fixed half our head-shaking issues with the gnats.

On the itchies, because if I don’t write this I’m not going to: she’s always been itchy. For the first few years a good wither scratch was the only reward she wanted. She and her next door neighbor would co-groom allllll the time. I started her on allergy meds last year (prescription + Platinum). That took things down from “everything is itchy all the time” to “things are a little itchy”. But this summer we’ve hit full itchy mode again on and off, hives on her hind legs, so itchy she goes and scratches herself raw in turnout. Prescription cream + swat seem to have resolved this most recent episode. It’s super frustrating because I have no idea what’s causing it, it seems to come completely out of nowhere, and yall this horse is only six and another twenty years of hyper-analyzing every lump on her sounds like an anxiety nightmare. This is on my list to talk to the vet about next month.

We’re not where I thought we’d be now, but I’m not unhappy with the time we’re taking and the relationship we’re building. Small steps, indeed.