So I bought myself a god...

And if I'd thought of it earlier, all the horses would've been named after gods :)

So Apollo is... HUGE. hahaha and a sweetheart. I wanted to give him a day or two to settle and then start riding him for a couple weeks before putting him in lessons. Right - best laid plans of mice n men... Or something like that >;-P

I moved Apollo in and Dixie took immediate and dramatic dislike to him. So I switched her and Lissy so she wouldn't be next to him and all was fine overnight. Turning out, she clearly still wanted nothing to do with him, so she and Lissy got their own paddock (Si's still out with the boys since she really doesn't like the mares. I could comment on that, but maybe shouldn't :)

Ok so the day goes well. Apollo gets along well with everybody else n seems quiet and happy. Except when Dixie came in she had one eye shut and goopy :( Boo. Scratched it and had the typical TB overreaction. Sheesh. (follow up - she was perfectly fine the next morning)

So Apollo gets drawn into the lesson. I had picked up a saddle for him that am, so no problem right? It even fit! (well I cheated and picked up two -- of course the more expensive one is the one that fits. Sheesh). Problem? No girth. The 56 barely reached half way up his belly. Hmmmmm Tried a bunch of things fiddling and sorting out -- got a bridle that fit over his ears (with some extra holes punched) but the noseband and throatlatch didn't even pretend to do up. So they got banished -- hardly necessary items anyways *g* His perfectly-normal sized bit came with him, so no problem there. Ok so after some scrounging of still no girth I went the lateral thinking route and put Jack's dressage saddle on him. And it fit! Sweet. Those billets are super-long so figured I could put a pony girth on and be good to go. In fact a giant sized dressage girth actually fit! Sweet.

He tried really hard. Was a little confuzzled by the whole canter idea, but had walk/trot and cavelletti down no problem. And indeed super-quiet. So much so that I used him for a novice lesson the next day :)

More on the lateral thinking note - as I exerted more energy than I knew I had trying to push the two 10L water buckets UP the snow-covered icy slope in the wheel barrow to water the horses (never seemed like much of a hill till today!). And I look over and see kids going tobogganing. Lightbulb! Tomorrow the wheelbarrow is being ditched in favour of a sled :) hahaha if it's gotta be winter, I may as well use the winter toys eh?

Off to feed. Late. Oops :) Good thing they're enjoying their round bales. Nobody's likely to care *g*