Rambunctious in the Round Pen

Not actually from today. Details.

Today was Rush's big day.. CANTER TIME! We've been walk/trotting under saddle for two weeks now, and she's gotten a hecka ton better. At first we weren't so much for the trotting at a reasonable pace or bending or even going in a straight line, but those issues are smoothing out and she's gained back some muscle tone so we decided to start tackling the canter. It's gonna be a looooong haul.

I went in the evening today, since I had plans this morning and it's been so godawfully hot that it would have been unfair to ask her to do anything between the hours of 9-5. Tossed her in the round pen (the awesome round pen that gets dragged/raked every day and it has sprinklers what.) and we did walk/trot in each direction very belligerently, since apparently having a nekked face makes us very opinionated on what we should be doing. 

And then crazy whee! fun happened. Basically it was chaos happening and I couldn't really control much so I just tried to keep her from breaking when she was cantering properly and not cross-firing. I also worked on pushing her to the outside of the round pen, since she likes to cut in when she's being naughty. I let her stop in each direction after she had made it one time around without breaking/cross-firing.. honestly she barely cantered at all. And guess what? DRENCHED in sweat by the end. Sweat was literally dripping off her. I felt really bad so I sacrificed myself and hopped on bareback to walk her out, and we tooled around in the dressage ring (which is COVERED, did I mention that?). 

After she was reasonably cooled down, but not any drier than previously, I took her up and hosed all the sweat off of her. She managed to nick herself on her back right, just above the coronet band, but it's nothing serious. I just scrubbed it with Betadine and slathered some Corona on it, much to her dismay. She hates Corona for some reason. If you try to put it on her when she's in her stall, she literally runs to the opposite corner, naughty thing. So I sprayed her off, inventoried all one of her scrapes and took care of it, then gave her a Sore No More rinse and let her chill in a sun pen for an hour or so. Which she probably hated.

Tomorrow I'll probably stretchy walk/trot to see how she's feeling, if she isn't too sore/tired we'll work on flexion and bending in the dressage ring. If she's not feeling 100% she can have some time in the sun pen and get the rest of the day off, and we'll start work up the next day.

I'm thinking a 3-day cycling pattern in regards of her getting fit at the canter, since I don't want to overdo it or make her do the same thing every day.

Day 1: barebalk walk to warm-up, then round pen work on cantering

Day 2: walk/trot hack working on bending, keep it pretty brief

Day 3: walk/trot hack to warm up and then hill work at the walk

Rinse and repeat!