It May Possibly Almost Be Official...

Way to sound sure of yourself.  I think that's just about as uncertain as I could get, while still hoping to employ some sense of credibility.  Anyhow, I digress.  The reason for the blog title is that if we can arrange a vet check, settle on a price, then as long as Cadence is cleared, she'll be mine!  Sort of a scary thought, to be honest.  While it is naturally very exciting, change is always a little scary.  I think (no, I know) my only hesitation in this whole ordeal has to do with Arty.  While Cadence would be the first horse I've ever had full ownership of, Arty was really my first horse.  Anyhow, no use in being a downer.  I'll still ride Arty a couple times a month... I could never give up my pony.  He means far too much to me.  Is that selfish?  Probably.  Will I do it anyways?  Definitely. 
Keep on topic, right.  So today Cadence and I had another lesson.  She hadn't been ridden since Monday, due to the fact I was starting my new semester.  On top of that, she got to watch all the other horses go out while I tacked her up.  Needless to say, she was wired and pissed when I finally got around to hopping on.  She wasn't interested in softening, and insisted on rushing forward a couple of steps before finally listening to my corrections.  Her canter work was nice (save some major head tosses), and is feeling more balanced.  Its still a bit off to the right.  I think popping a pair of draw reins on once a week could help balancing her.  I'm not a huge fan of draws or side reins.  I don't even really like martingales, but I prefer using them occasionally and correctly if it will really and truly benefit the horse.  I've also thought about putting a standing martingale on her when I lunge her.  My preferance is standing over runnign, because I don't want the correction to be on her mouth.  However, I'm a little wary because if she throws her head like she did today, then she's just going to snap it clean in half.  Ah well... atleast her jumping was fantastic.  Seriously, I mean fantastic.  We did another gymnastic today, except we popped the stool-jump up to a vertical.  Cadence was jumping neatly through it like they were trot poles.  Actually, better than if they were trot poles, she sucks at poles. 

Cadence'd jump the jumps nicely, but forget that there was a pole after the jump and that she didn't have enough room to get over it if she landed AT the pole.  On the positive side, we know she's got scope.  Lynda was going to see if she could pop the barrels up so they were standing, and then have her jump that, but I'll admit I wasn't really comfortable with that.  It would have been approx 3'6 at minimum, and having never jumped higher than 3', or maybe 3'3 if I'm lucky I wasn't totally comfortable doing that on her today.  2'9-3'9's a bit of a leap on a calm experienced horse.  On a young mare who you're trying to convince not to gallop around the arena, its a bit of a stretch.  I doubt Lynda would have had us do it, it was more curiosity on her part. In the end, we popped an x in between the barrels, with the end result only being marginally higher than before.  Oh well!  Hopefully we'll have standards soon. 

Oh my, I've written a lot!  If anyone actually reads through all this, I'll be really impressed :)

One quick note on Bailey, then I'm done.  I went out to ride yesterday, and noticed a small crack in his front right.  Got on, warmed up, started into some trot work.  Stopped for a break & to convince my mum to take some pictures.  She commented that his hoof looked bad, I checked again and it'd gotten a lot worse.  It looked like that chunk of hoof was going to break right off, so I took him back into the barn, cleaned him up, and sent an urgent email to his mum.  Poor boy!