Riding in the Rain

I grew up being told "you can't ride in the rain." I don't know about you, but I know as sweet of a person I can be, for certain I'm not made of sugar. I won't melt and I'll say some of my best days of riding have been out in the rain. I've learned that on most rainy days, people aren't out on the roads, people aren't flocked at the barn, people aren't out hiking, and they tend to stay home. So that being said, after meeting up with friends this morning at Denny's for breakfast and short trip over to L's house to see her piece of Heaven, I decided that it would be a good day to ride outside. Off to the barn I went, Cobre' seemed happy to see me and happy that I brought him inside from the rain (little did he know).

We tacked up and outside we went. It was just drizzling and with the indoor arena being in use, we played and warmed up in the outdoor arena. I've been putting arena work back into his daily life a little bit at a time. Usually we take a lap or two around the property, then go into one of the arena's, do a few laps in there, and out back to plod around the property. He seems to like it like that, so we'll continue it. So far he hasn't had a arena melt down in weeks, so I guess I am doing something right.

After playing around on the property for a bit, he seemed bored. I figured with it now raining we could walk down to road to the fire hydrant and come back. It's not a far walk at all, but I just want to get him used to being okay to go out alone. We got to the fire hydrant and he seemed so happy and relaxed, I figured we could walk into the field a few feet and come back. He kept plodding on through the field with out any hesitation, so we continued on. At one point we came across a big pile of dumped straw, he wasn't too sure of that, but after a few neck rubs and telling him it was okay to walk over it, he went right over it. So we did a big loop around the field and came back up to the road and headed home. He did fabulous!

Looking like a drowned rat

Rain rain go away!