It rains

The best reason to clean and oil your dust, sweat and horse-hair covered tack?

Why, ride in the rain, of course!

We've had copious amounts of rain for the past couple of days, (yes! FINALLY!) so of course, the arena is muddy and even with my new lights ready to make night riding a reality, I'm really reluctant to tear up the arena when it's so nice and smooth and lovely right now.

Of course, it decided to rain when I got home from work and decided I was going to ride anyway. Gabe was a turd while grooming and tacking up. He untied himself, tried to untie Teddy, chewed on Teddy's halter and pulled his own saddle pad off. He was one great big wet troublemaker! Brushing a wet, muddy horse is kind of pointless, by the way. And covering your saddle with a towel in the rain? Equally pointless.

We took off down the road and had a very good, energetic ride. Both boys were mostly well-behaved. Gabe was particularly full of energy on the way back and was convinced that an extremely collected canter was what I wanted, not a nice, big forward-moving trot. When he decides he doesn't want to really work at the trot, he slides on up into a canter that is almost slower than his walk and has very, very little forward movement. At least he doesn't try to run away!

By the way, a wet, muddy, sweaty horse is kinda stinky. And that stinkiness wafts upwards, just sayin'.

My bridle was soaked, my saddle soaked.

Which was as good a reason as any to finally get off my lazy butt and get it scrubbed clean and oiled. I'm typically very good about keeping my tack clean, but over the summer we rode SO much that it kind of fell to the wayside. I think it got cleaned maybe twice and it was definitely showing the neglect.

It all looks good now, so we can officially start our fall riding season in clean, oiled, waterproof tack. Gabe won't be embarrassed to be seen out in public in that filthy saddle any more.