Back in the saddle

Decided I was riding Bally today come hell or high water after her wangling 10 days off with scraped legs, a teeny new splint and a split hoof!!!!!

....and as usual we had to contend with some interesting distractions......

Set off down to the school and two of the kids on the yard came clattering down the path by the lane on their whizzy little ponies, went to go trotting past Bally which understandably wound her up a bit so I asked them not to scoot past, ten seconds later their ponies have planted as someone is making a commotion in one of the houses we pass and Gi, Bally and I have to give them a lead lol!

Discover that they are putting jumps up and having a short jumping lesson...now I'm all for introducing Bally to things going on, but I'm wondering if watching two PC ponies charging around leaping fences is maybe something to save for a ride when we're a leeeetle bit more established! ;-o

We had a ride round the school whilst they warmed up and before Mum turns up to put up the fences. B was a bit unsettled but as her steering was Ok I got Gi to let us off the lead pretty much straight away and Bally was really good considering. Tried a bit of a nap back to the ponies a couple of times but I just made semaphore size turning aids to get her back on track, then loads of praise when she went where I wanted her to. :-D

Transitions to halt good and nice crisp walk ons to follow. We managed a nice circle of trot on each rein - first time we've trotted off the line and by this point Gi had actually wandered off to the mounting block so I really was in charge and flying solo :-o

By this point jump wings were being dragged into the school so we had a nice walk down past all that and past the ponies, Bally got a big good girl for being totally unfussed!!

We walked off out the school and decided to have a 10 minute hack down the road. Bally had a couple of hesitant moments, but responded really well to me using the lead rope I was carrying as a Wip wop and suddenly discovered her forwards button lol
She was nice and calm as we had cars pass her from in front and behind (although I asked Gi to actually walk right by the side of her for support this time) and even gave me a little leg yield across the road after wandering off line a little
We also had a really good little trot and then turned around and walked back to the yard, past all the scary stuff..B had an eek about a mound of gravel, but happily went back to investigate it when asked.

All in all I was really pleased with her - what was that, fourth time I've sat on her???? Superstar girly (wub)