Filly hates to get muddy. I have never ever seen her roll in a field. In the nice clean sand indoor school she loves to roll, it is the highlight of her day. But in mud, never.
I was a little perturbed therfore on arriving at the yard yesterday to find her legs and belly covered in sticky, wet mud. She hadn't rolled apparently, but she had careered around the field so much that she had splashed her lower half with a thick coating. It was so sticky and wet that there was no question of cleaning her enough to be able to put a saddle on, and given the weather she would not have dried if I had washed her.
If she thought this was a clever way to get out of work, she had forgotten about ground work. So off to the outdoor school we went.
We started at liberty. As soon as I took off her halter she spotted a jump wing that was set up and wandered over to investigate. Never knock the curiosity out of a young horse, so I waited to see what she would do. After a good sniff she decided that practising sideways over it would be a great idea. With no prompting from me she carefully positioned herself and then stepped sideways until it was under her belly. The thing was so tall there was only one part of her belly it would fit under, as you can see from the photo. I was very surprised but happy to see her play and curiosity was this strong.
The rest of the session was just pretty normal stuff so I won't bore you with the details. Suffice to say by the end of the session she was dry enough for me to get very dusty scraping all the dried mud off :(
I was a little perturbed therfore on arriving at the yard yesterday to find her legs and belly covered in sticky, wet mud. She hadn't rolled apparently, but she had careered around the field so much that she had splashed her lower half with a thick coating. It was so sticky and wet that there was no question of cleaning her enough to be able to put a saddle on, and given the weather she would not have dried if I had washed her.
If she thought this was a clever way to get out of work, she had forgotten about ground work. So off to the outdoor school we went.
We started at liberty. As soon as I took off her halter she spotted a jump wing that was set up and wandered over to investigate. Never knock the curiosity out of a young horse, so I waited to see what she would do. After a good sniff she decided that practising sideways over it would be a great idea. With no prompting from me she carefully positioned herself and then stepped sideways until it was under her belly. The thing was so tall there was only one part of her belly it would fit under, as you can see from the photo. I was very surprised but happy to see her play and curiosity was this strong.
The rest of the session was just pretty normal stuff so I won't bore you with the details. Suffice to say by the end of the session she was dry enough for me to get very dusty scraping all the dried mud off :(
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