The Pond Comes Back

And Royal and I go back in it.

We've had a bunch of rain here and the pond that Royal and I went swimming in came back. On Wednesday I went out to find it was quite big, twice the size of last time. I hopped on Royal bareback, and tried to ride him in. It took some approach and retreat, but eventually he walked in. It was a really shallow part, so he didn't need a lot of effort to get through it. We waded back and forth a couple of times. Then we went to the deeper part, which Royal was somewhat suspicious of. For good reason, as I found out, as the water was up to his chest and my jeans got very wet. He's a 16.1H leggy Anglo-Arab, so that means the water was around 3.5-4 feet deep. He didn't care; he started splashing which got me even more wet. A couple more passed in the deep water, and we were done for the day.

Today, I decided to focus on jumping and if there was time later, try for the water. We had a pretty good jumping session: Royal was mostly relaxed with a few rush-y jumps here and there, but it was good. If the weather holds out, we'll go the the Carriage House schooling show on Sunday. However, if there are thunderstorms, we'll stay home thankyewverymuch. But right now, I'm prepping like there won't be any storms. We'll see.

After the jumping was done, we went out to the pond. All saddled up and everything. Royal hesitated a bit, but walked straight in to the shallow part. Then the medium part and finally the deep part. He splashed us silly a few times, shook himself dry like a Labrador, and had a good time. I was able to film a couple of passes through the medium-depth part (thanks in incredibly flexible and sturdy camera stands):





Yes, this is the same horse who used to be afraid of his own urine and the same rider who used to be too scared to ride him. We've come a long way, baby.