Argh.. this weather... Dan's footsore.... I'm cranky... Couldn't ride as much last week and weekend because they both threw shoes...
So... today is my day off... and it's raining. Kind of all day. Argh! I did try to sneak in a ride on Dan and he was still lame, so... I pouted. Of course around 4:45 pm the weather looked like it was maybe going to clear up. I checked the radar and it looked like no rain til about 7ish. Mike said he didn't care, so I went to go ride Lyric! Luckily she had on her rain sheet with neck so she was pretty dry. She was a little damp at the saddle area but not bad.
She was a bit nervous at the trailer but I managed to get her tacked up and we headed to the arena. We did our pillar walking and then I lunged her. She almost immediately went to a forward, down and out stretch! Yay! It's still not consistent and still barely a stretch and she still is bouncing very close to bracing in her poll, but... it's getting better!
Then I got on and we rode. She was Much calmer today and back to her fairly normal self. The horses has also come up to join us. I had put on the thorowgood saddle and the long girth too. Just a thinline pad. I'm thinking the half pad might be bothersome to her. But anyways, she was pretty good. We got some pretty level neck position at the walk and trot and some stretching down even at the trot. We cantered pretty early on and she picked up the left lead on the first try. We had a better and calmer canter too and she came down pretty quickly to a quiet trot after again. Then we had a friend show up to take a peek at my arena as he's redoing his. So we stopped and chatted and Lyric just stood on a loose rein with a relaxed neck. Yay! After he left we picked back up and she was a bit more quick but not too bad. She settled and then we cantered again. The first time she came back to a calm slower trot pretty quickly but after the other two canters, she got quick again. We walked and then trotted and then she settled into a nice quieter trot again. Good girl! We're making progress. Incredibly slow progress, but progress again!
I got a really good trot both ways and we called it quits. She hacked back to the barn on a very soft loose rein with a lovely neck shape! I really need to do lots of long walk hacks with her to help strengthen her. And probably keep lunging. And add hills or cavaletti's because her stifle is sloppy!
But yes.. I feel better now! Even if we got rained on a little bit at the end. :) At least I got to ride and we had a decent one.
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