Winter Music

 photos: 8-26 canter work kinda stupid hot but had a late start to my day so figured i might as well try, since it wasn't quite so unbearable this morning... at least until I tacked up ;) But hey... she wasn't sweaty before we started at least. rode before breakfast even though not as early as I should have cause I slept in a bit. kept it short. a bit stiff and braced. lost her hind end a few times. worked on working to lengthen to working in trot and canter. helped. canter got better at the end and then got a nice trot. had a good stretchy trot too. quit on that and hacked home.

 so hot and steamy.. changed my mind once i got to ashland. was supposed to hack with sharon and jamie and jessica, but wanted to practice the dressage test. but then decided perhaps to jump XC with Jessica instead and practice dressage tomorrow or wed or fri. Needed to make sure we were ready to jump BN cross country.  fun ride. a little wired to start. then schooled. as long as i stay back she goes. but man, we lost steering and it's a bit squirrely! good girl though. galloped away with me up the hill, but... i let her. didn't ask, but allowed. ;)  then poor sharon got dumped.  good pony but hot pony.  photos: 8-26 trails and xc, videos

 8-26 so steamy hopped on because why not. it's miserable but i'm already soaked and sweaty and geared up and it's not actively raining, despite threatening with rumbles. poor lyric was already basically soaked in sweat. not dripping but mostly covered. tacked up and did a quick ride. much better right off the bat. quite decent really. canters much better though right lead today felt a bit earthbound. better when I stay 'behind" her. Sit up straight... and post up and down by also slightly diagonally.  did the gate good on the second attempt. Did livestock pen and single slalom. good pony. worked on leg yield too and getting better about riding her like Funny and Dan... follow my body :) nice.

  So... I thought Lyric MIGHT be sound today. She was pretty darn lame Sunday sadly. But then Monday, when I put her in the round pen, she was like 85% sound and was frisky. It was just too hot and humid to ride and too late. My day got away from me. So I didn't... but I was hoping that today would be far enough out from her sore foot that she would have bounced back. And after my lesson on Funny, her and Dan were running around in the field and she was bucking and playing, so... my suspicions were even more validated. Although.. she was also straddling the water trough yesterday morning. :(  I was debating taking her to Ashland to ride with Kelli instead of Dan because of what Liz had said about not riding Dan today. But then Kelli was not messaging me at all. She had said she should be done by 12:30 ish and would call me on her way home and could probably ride at 2, but then.. it was like... 1:30 and nothing. And it had rained around 12:30 and then the sky turned blue again....

 Good ride on Lyric. Fairly consistent and steady. got better bend. canter transitions improving and canter is better. Right lead was a bit better than the left, but... still overall better. played with BN test a tiny bit. worked on some halts. Did the "drums" too. few lengthens. really quite nice and respectable. :) Did lose/roll over her hind foot 3 times today hard and once soft. Freshly shod too??? dangit Barely beat the rain.  shockwaved tonight. back, lumbars, SI joints, lateral girth area, lower cervicals. the works!! maybe she will stop sitting on the wall again. But yay for no more straddling the water trough (that i've noticed).  photos: 8-26 good girl

  Yahoo!! We finally got to pop over some cross country fences!! We have all our shoes... we are sound... and it's not a gabillion degrees out!   I had a cancellation for this morning and opted to not fill it. So that meant I could ride! Since yesterday was stupidly mean temperature and humidity wise, I didn't get to ride Lyric. So, today she got to go play! I debated taking her to Ashland vs riding at home and maybe being able to sneak two in, but... I decided that I wanted to go do XC. Even though I forgot that we're schooling on Saturday, but... still! I wanted to play. I was trying to be good and asked Caroline if she wanted to join me. She said yes, so yay!!! Except then her son was complaining about his hurt foot so she had to take him to the doctors. Poor kid ended up having a broken foot. So then I double debated riding at home, but then Sharon texted and said that her hair appt got cancelled so she could ride. Yay! So I decided to go to Ashland after all. But then ...