Winter Music

 Arena ride at home. Super chilly but nice in the sun in the arena good girl. 

  Except for the pivo. That thing drove me bananas today. Ha! Happy Thanksgiving!! Today was a good day. Mike and I slept in and then after I fed the critters we had beignets for breakfast! Yum! Then after I worked on Dan's book for an hour or so, Mike went for a ride on his motorcycle and I took Dan to Ashland. When I got back, after a quick lunch, I got Lyric out.  She got a bemer session and then we did her core exercises at the trailer. She was good but she is definitely so tight in her neck and poll. She struggles to reach down to her fetlocks and even knees on the sides. That neck needs to grow baby girl! But we'll keep at it and hopefully we can get her stretchier and more relaxed. So then I tacked up and we walked up to the arena. We did a tiny bit of pillar work and then I lunged her for a short stint. She's getting good at lunging... she's relaxing pretty much immediately now and stretching nicely. However, she's still tight in her back (or somewhere) as s

 Quick ride... sort of sucked. head tilt. then freaked out about the whip. finished with a decent little stint of nice trot work. but... argh.. why do i suck so bad? Why can i not figure out how to ride her?? 

  Today was a fun day! We had a lesson at Ashland with Jacel. Originally it was supposed to be XC because.... you know, it's been awhile. But then Laura said she could join last minute and I guess we didn't tell her it was XC so she hacked down without her vest. So, no worries, we changed to stadium. Luckily they had just finished dragging the arenas and replacing all the show fences with schooling fences and it was open. And it was great! We had so much fun.  Lyric is so brave, even when she's not brave. We worked on footwork again today with placing poles. And Lyric was a bit feral! She was in racehorse mode and forward!!! Which, was harder on me because I started to get a little handsy, but then also a little tipped with my shoulders. Not bad though!!! Jacel said I never once got "crazy" with my body! I panicked once, but never got crazy. yay! But about halfway through the lesson, I just got a hair taller in my body and sat a bit more on my seat bones and... sh

    Well... that was a pretty decent ride. :) I adjusted her yesterday and massaged her hamstrings. She seemed to really enjoy it. And she felt much looser in the hind end today! At least in the beginning. Towards the end she got a little more tight, but she at least started softer. Go me!  And I put her in the nathe today... the loose ring. I think she did like it better. She seemed a little less fussy and a little more willing to take up an even connection in both reins. Maybe it's cause I was focusing more on that? We worked on just tracking up and riding to the light rein and giving to the heavy rein. I focused more on riding the hind end and body vs her face. But I did insist that she not brace. But I tried to soften as soon as she softened. We'll see how it goes. I hate that I sort of keep changing the rules on her as I can't figure out if I'm doing it right or not. Sigh.. But we had some good moments and very few horrible moments. Then we went on a hack. We manag

  I think I made the right choice today. Although part of me is still beating myself up for it. We were supposed to have a XC lesson with Aubrey today. I was actually looking forward to it. We haven't done XC since RRP and we haven't had that many rides total to be honest. But, we had a really good jump school the other day and while our dressage rides have been ... not great... I was hoping that my good XC rides on Dan would help carry over. But it rained yesterday... and rained most of the night... and pretty much all morning. And it was chilly. Low 50's which isn't terrible except when it's also damp. And.. it was supposed to rain non-stop all day. So... I was sort of looking forward to a chill day in the house in my pjs. I wanted to catch up on things like cleaning the house, listening to some webinars, laundry, dishes, blogging...  And I figured that riding XC in todays weather would NOT be conducive to a productive and confidence boosting ride. I was sort of h