Today was the girl's day off, and they enjoyed it very much. When I got to the barn around 3:30, the sun was blazing and hot so I went out to the field and took off the horse's blankets. As soon as I took off Blondie's she promptly trotted off with a flick of her tail, soon breaking into canter and having a little victory gallop around the field. I remember thinking how great it is that she's in a place where she can gallop around as much as she wants.
I rode Finny first since I've kind of been neglecting her because of the event, and she was very good. I'm starting to get her a bit "lighter in the bridle", meaning she's not pulling against me, more like resting her mouth onto the bit and contact. She's also getting more attentive to my aids.
Then I went out to get Rose. She seemed pretty happy to see me, which is good. I took her to the lunge pen, took off her halter, and let her run around. We played around at liberty in the lunge pen and Rose seemed very pleased with herself. Then I put the rope halter and lead back on and we practiced some lunging, yielding the hindquarters, voice cues to change the speed of Rose's gait, and backing up when I shake the lead rope and say, "back". She's also pretty much caught on to the cue for when I don't want her to eat grass and when she's allowed to eat grass.
When I took her inside, it was getting to be evening. I put her in her stall and gave her some grain for dinner, then I stood leaning against the stall door and watched her eat.
I talked to her and both of us had finally calmed down from the weekend's events. Now here's the special part: after Rose finished her grain, she came over to me and put her head over the stall door and my shoulder. I reached up to her withers and started scratching her there, which is the place where horses would groom each other. I just kept on scratching her in a way that imitated a horse's mouth, and then she was feeling friendly and decided to groom me back. I was sort of hoping she would, and it was an experiment to see how much I could imitate a horse so she'd get it and groom me back. Which she did! She shuffled her lips back and forth along me arm and shoulder, and was very gentle about it. It was better than a massage!
We stayed like that for a long time, until Rose decided she was hungry for some hay. At that point I had to leave, so I said goodbye to her and Blondie and came home feeling content.