best day with my bestie

RBF and I had a gruelling but totally necessary meeting Wednesday morning that kinda took it out of us.  We were ironing out some issues for NorCal OTTB, which is ultimately good, because we are planning on really growing our program this year and kicking things into gear, so we needed to make sure everything is moving forward correctly.  But it’s hard to discuss organisational and fundraising details for three hours, no matter how important they are.

Anyway.

RBF is looking for a new saddle for her OG.  Her current jump saddle isn’t fitting him, and because she is conformationally a little unique (short femur, long calf, overall short legs) she doesn’t fit in a lot of saddles.  I didn’t believe her for a long time, but today I watched her riding around a bit, then I sat in the exact same saddle and rode around and realised how much better it fit me than her.  Long legs, yo.  They are an advantage.  RBF worked her way through a few different saddles on both of her horses, some for the OG and some for her.  One saddle was the absolute worst — we both felt perched up on top of her older guy like little jockeys, like we were a mile away from her horse’s back!  Trotting around it was ok, I could kindof control my leg position, but when I tried to get up into two point it was impossible!  There was no balance in that thing!  We ended up laughing and shrieking and carrying on like idiots riding around in that thing because it really was hilarious.

The OG, almost a year ago.

Murray caught on to our good mood, and when I got back on to school some dressage we cantered joyfully around the arena, posing only a slight steering hazard to the other two people in there.  RBF came back with her older gelding in her own saddle and we raced each other around the arena a bit.  Fortunately, Derb didn’t catch up to Murray too too much, because then Murray really would have been uncontrollable — and I in a dressage saddle would surely have eaten dirt — and the teenager carrying on continued.

I used some of our momentum from the gallop to get Murray sitting in the canter, and then did a couple of good trot-canter transitions each direction and called it good.  I didn’t even mind that Murray threw in a little “don’t hold me, woman!” opinion at the end, because really, I was holding.  Plus the sun was shining, the air smelled like warm root beer, and the towels were oh so fluffy, and  anybody on the street would gladly shave your back for a nickel everything was just peachy!  I haven’t had a good gallop in a while, so even getting close was enough to bring my mood up quite a bit.

I’m entering thesis lock down, so I’m working on some solutions to get Murray ridden a bit more when I won’t necessarily be out at the barn.  I think I’ve got a good one though, so I’m not too worried.

Just a great day with my RBF, (almost) galloping and laughing in the spring air.  I’m not sure I could ask for more.