In the dark and wind and snow...

Uphill both ways in my bare feet. Wait, wrong story ;)

Yesterday I didn't have a chance to ride Barokko before work, and by the time I got back it was dark. It was quite windy, with hard gusts every now and then making it hard to breathe if you were facing right into the wind. Oh, and it was actually snowing, too ;) But the ground in the arena wasn't frozen and we've just gotten 3 flood lights installed, so I decided to ride out there instead of trecking up to the indoor (with a 15 min walk each way we'd be getting cold anyway).

Barokko was such a good boy, he didn't jump even once, despite the very interesting conditions ;) We trotted quite a lot, this time I did some longer trot intervals than I've done the other rides, and while he tired he kept going, and didn't balk at my pressing him forward. When we didn't have wind-in-the-face issues he was very stable on the bit, I'm truly amazed at the change in him. Still stiff to bend, but I could feel a slight improvement since I began riding again. It'll come, but it'll just take some time.

This morning I woke up to a goodly layer of snow, and was ready to jump out of bed for an early morning ride, hoping to beat the thaw, but it was already too late :( So It's a day off for Barokko today, when the snow compacts like this I don't want to risk anything. Hopefully it'll either freeze or thaw completely soon. It's still snowing right now, so maybe my best bet is to hope for colder temps, so we can get some good snow rides!

Besides being terribly beautiful and impractical, snow is also great when you have an unblanketed horse - rolling in the snow cleans his woolies much better than I'm able to with grooming :D