Cob Jockey

Aeres has had a big couple of days even though I haven't ridden her yet. On Monday, I gave her a thorough grooming and started to pull her mane. Not only did the length need to go, but she's a very badly faded black with orange highlights, which also needed to go.

On Tuesday we finished up mane pulling and also banged her tail. I sent Mary this (terrible) photo and she was like "...we gotta do something about that orange forelock. Like, yesterday."

On Wednesday, she got her teeth done. My vet was coming out anyway, and I'd noticed her dropping lots of feed while eating, so I wanted that done before I put a bit in her mouth. "Nothing crazy" going on in there according to my vet, although I think her definition of crazy is crazier than mine, lol. She definitely needed done, so that was money well spent.

Then Wednesday night Mary came out armed with a box of $2.99 hair dye, Vaseline, saran wrap and hair ties.

Turns out she'd never done this before, but she totally acted like she had. First, she put Vaseline on Aeres's star to protect it from the hair dye, then she applied the dye, and then she thought she might wrap the forelock in Saran wrap but Aeres was not having that.

While we waited, we used whitening shampoo on her white socks (OMG. I am reminded that Connor's socks aren't and never will be pure white, sob. Aeres's socks got blindingly white) and threw her on the lunge line in a halter to watch her move for the first time.

Mary's face watching her go was like: 

She has a really nice free swinging walk, overtracks huge at the walk and the trot, and an athletic canter. Objectively speaking, she moves better than Connor does even if she's not as pretty as he is standing still. But what really got us excited was lunging her over a tiny crossrail, which she'd clearly never done before. The first couple times, she just trotted big over it like "WTF do I do with my feet??"

The next time around, I asked her to jump from a canter, and she jumped it really well but got a not-perfect distance, then the time after that, she nailed it. Not only could you watch her think through the question in real time and make adjustments each go around until it was perfect, she was bold to the fence and chill about it, with happy thinking ears.

This immediately got the wheels turning in my head.

I suspect this horse may have gotten a bit burnt out on Dressage at her previous home for a couple of (entirely theoretical, since I haven't been on her yet) reasons. If that ends up being the case, and if she ends up enjoying jumping and showing talent for it, and if I have my best jumping wingman on board to help me with her all the time, I'm not going to say no. Heck, all I've got is a jump saddle at home anyway since my Dressage saddle is with Connor, so may as well just roll with it.

I do know for a fact she is the undisputed side eye champion of the world 😂