I gave her royal highness Saturday off because she had been pretty tired on Friday. I just walked around bareback with the quarter sheet wrapped around my legs and basically rode her on the buckle and let her wander around the indoor where ever she wanted to go. I jogged her a bit to see if she wanted to stretch any, but her head went straight to the ground and she took itty bitty steps (aka I'm TIRED mom why do we have to do this) so I didn't push it and let her come back down to a walk.
Sunday we ended up going on our first ever long trail ride! I hacked out with Maresa and we ended up going for a 5 mile trail, which was super awesome and fun.
Rush was pretty good on it, she got a bit
jittery a few times but nothing ridiculous and it was usually because she was
getting sucked into the mud, which she hated with a fiery passion. She walked
through all the marshy wet spots like a saint (even stopped for some good ol’
fashioned pawing) and did most of it on the buckle with her head level. We
trotted through the forest a bit, she was excited (and a little confused) but
definitely controllable and towards the end I even got her a little more framed
up. I was really proud of her!
She was sweating after the trail so I thought she had gotten a decent workout.. hahaha no. Yesterday she was a little booger and we had a really frustrating ride, much to my dismay. Originally the plan was to just do a quick warm up and then do lots of pole courses to work on my eye, and finish up with some low jumps. Rush had other ideas.
We warmed up pretty well at the trot, and she felt
nice and steady in the contact. Then I picked up the right canter lead in the
top corner and she saw Ziggy cantering towards her and flipped out, bolting
forwards and then sideways and almost ran out into the road. I got her walking
then trotting normally through that corner and then attempted cantering again,
but she kept happening completely unprovoked bolting sessions, particularly at
the bottom of the arena and up the fenced side. She wouldn’t settle after that
and was agitated and hollow/bracing at the trot afterwards.
I wasn’t
comfortable working her through it in the outdoor, since it’s not fenced in and
my lower leg felt quite loose, so I took her up into the indoor to canter and
hopefully work through some energy. She, of course, gave me a lovely canter up
there with no qualms and the only problem we had was her trying to cut off the
corner by the tack room tracking right. After a few times around with solid
inside leg pressure, an opening outside rein, and a restricting inside rein she
started bending through that corner properly. We did a few simple changes through
the diagonal, a few circles, but mostly just lots of laps around the arena both
ways at a solid canter to get her energy out. After she was sweating pretty
hard I took her back outside and cantered her both ways, cutting the ring in
half. She was better- no bolting (except when a gate slammed shut but I forgave her for that)- but was obviously alert and not relaxed at
all compared to the indoor. It feels like when she anticipates where she’s
going- like going up a long side- she starts to ignore me and hollow out, and
if I ask for something different (like turning and circling instead of going up
the straightaway) she panics and is already hollow so she just scoots more with
her head up in the air. It’s frustrating because she’s progressed so much in
the trot these past few weeks.. if only we could translate that to the canter.
I
started off today by finishing the clip job. She needs
some touch ups by her elbows and chest but I can do that tomorrow. Her clipped
parts look so dapper I just want to shave everything!! But that’s a bad idea
and she wouldn’t like me very much.
My ride was actually, for once, awesome!!
Started with some posting trot figure eights with no stirrups, then picked the
stirrups up and did some balancing trot instead. My aim for this ride was to
leave her alone and just quietly support her through things she had difficulty
with. It worked really well! She was really relaxed through the entire ride and
was pretty much on cruise control; the only times I really got involved with
her was to push her into corners since she likes to cut them. While me leaving
her alone meant that we didn’t exactly go around in a frame, she had a lovely
relaxed little march and did offer some moments of roundness. This applied to the
canter, as well- I didn’t bother her about her face and she responded by having
a balanced and rhythmic canter that wasn’t necessarily round but was quiet and
normal. I did a lot of balancing at the canter, mostly to work on myself, but
she also seemed to like it and did lots of stretching down and rounding out. We
did some changes of direction on the diagonals- we turned up them, came down to
a trot, trotted over a pole, then picked up the opposite in the corner. My hope
with this was that she’d wait for me to ask for the canter again, rather than
just running through the change the way she likes to. She did really well and
even had some nice controlled trot in between canter leads.
We went over a crosspole at the trot a
few times- she was super lazy and knocked it- and then cantered through it both
ways to try and work on my eye. She was really good about not overjumping, even
when we got in long, so I was proud of her. After I was feeling more confident
about my eye we did a little ‘course’, aka down the crosspole change of lead up
one diagonal pole and then change of lead down the other diagonal pole. She was
doing so well and didn’t seem super tired, and I wanted to really work on
jumping when she was being reasonable, so I got off and reconfigured the poles
again. I set up a 2ft vertical with a pole 8 feetsies away on each side, and
then went over it at the canter to the right. The first few times we came up to
it I had to circle away because I just didn’t see a spot- I counted and
everything, there was just nothing there. Luckily I could pull her into a
circle smoothly and just regroup and come back to it. The first few times
through she was kind of figuring it out and overjumped then screwed up the pole
on the other side, then cut the corner at the top of the ring. Then she went
through it perfectly normal, but would land on the wrong lead and dive in. The
last time I went through to the right she went through like a champ, landed on
the correct lead, and listened to me when I kept her from diving in, so I ended
on that note instead of drilling it into her the other direction. All in all it
was a great ride!
