A feel good day

Must have been something in the air tonight, but I just had a feeling it would be a good one...and it was!

Little B whinnied and trotted up to the fence when I came to bring her in, led like a good girlie, popped into the stable block without any fuss and tied up like a lamb :-)

For the first time she was totally relaxed in the stable, not tense or fidgety (up till now she's been gradually better each day, but I could see that she'd still had vestiges of tension but not stressed as she had been the first few times coming in on her own)
She had her feet done without any moments of forgetting how to pick them up when asked (cheeky mare lol!) and just generally seemed really happy in herself. I gave her a good groom with lots of scritchy scratches and cuddles and tacked her up in her bridle, roller and rope halter so we could go for a good wander out in hand.

So off we went and I took her down the path between the fields, around the far perimeter, past the yappy dogs and round towards the big fertilizer mound...oooh potentially scary hazard...yeah as if lol! Bailarina has that real Luso courage - yes you can see she's alert for danger, but takes a cue from me being completely unconcerned and marches over to investigate.

Off we went again and I took her on the river bridleway for the first time, we had a couple of trots where I was looking for a good crisp transition up and down to my voice command and working on keeping a nice rhythm (whilst bemoaning my lack of running fitness hehehe) and she was super. I didn't want to do the whole circuit yet as it would take about an hour so picked a good spot to turn about and walk back.
Got to the little hill leading back to the hay field and asked her to trot out up it...such a good workout (for both of us) and she didn't disappoint giving me super powerful balanced lengthened strides (I'm so red and puffing by this stage I wanted to crawl lol!)

When we got back to the yard we stopped to have a chat to Ellie the yard groom so Bally had to stand still for ten minutes - she had a couple of bored baby fidgets but moved back to my click every time she moved her feet, several cars and vans drove straight past her and she paid no attention whatsoever. She was mildly tense when the bus depot started lowering the big shutter door, but stood and watched without being jumpy - luckily the chap shutting up shop has horses so he was watching out for her and doing it slowly to make sure she wasn't overly phased by it - a really great lesson for her!!

Off back to the stable and she stood stock still where I put her as I untacked (I'm a real stickler for this and she's picking it up nicely yay!) brushed her off then let her go in the stable whilst I went to get her dinner.
Again she was completely relaxed, she's really learning that it's Ok to be in the stable block by herself, it's something she has to get used to in the summer when she's coming in to be tacked up / groomed / washed off / etc whilst her field buddies are still outside so it's important that she sees it really is a nice place to be and certainly nothing to stress about. She'll be going out and about in the horsebox on her own so it's a good lesson in that respect too.

I gave her a small feed and left her to it for five minutes and she happily polished that off and stood & ate her hay totally happy and relaxed - I'm so chuffed!!

A really positive and useful day today, she was such a star!