Riding with Marvin

Today Kelli came to the farm to ride because we wanted to shockwave Marvin and... we need electricity to do it. So we couldn't do it at Ashland. Which meant, no trails but that's okay. I'll hit the trails tomorrow. That did give me time to lunge Dan and Funny though, which was nice. Except Dan is lame. Sigh... hopefully it's just an abscess. 

I pulled Lyric in and Kelli showed up with Marvin. Dan had come down to hang with Lyric and then said hi to Marvin. We put them in the cross ties and tacked them up. Lryic was squirrely. She's so antsy when things change. Bu she wasn't as bad as she has been before. We both got tacked up and walked them up to the arena via Jean's driveway. Poor Marvin... of course Jeans' horses came galloping up to the fenceline.. then the other pasture horse came galloping up. Then the cat was following us. Then my horses came cantering up. And then, he finally settled later and one of the interns came out of the woods on Charmin... and then a second time... disrupting some deer in the woods first. Lyric was good... she's used to it. And Marvin was super good too. 

I did our walk warm up and then we went to trotting and did our homework from our last lesson. I did lots of leg yielding and trying to get her into the outside rein. She was great tracking right. Not so much tracking left. It was a struggle, but... we did manage to get it some. We cantered too, once Marvin settled down. And the canter was better. Then the trot got better. And then she actually had a few circles (or at least parts of a circle) that had her in the outside rein the hard way. It was really quite nice. While it lasted. 

I rewarded her and we quit with that and watched Kelli some. When she finished we were chatting for a bit. I mentioned the struggle. She suggested turn on the forehand to help her activate her outside hind. Hmmm.... so I tried it. Going to the right was decent. She wasn't thrilled but she could do it. But going left was a struggle. She kept throwing her shoulders inside... falling in... vs stepping out. She would move her hind end but she was falling in first. So we tried for a bit and maybe got a step here or there. But she got fussy and tight and her neck got short. Ugh. It's so hard. So... I don't know. I'm not sure how helpful it will be but I'll try again. She did go into the outside rein some at the walk, but... maybe she always does at the walk?? 

So then I hacked her home and put her in the stall while we shockwaved Marvin. I wanted her to hear the noise because I was planning to do her too. I figured if she heard the noise first, she might be better. And she was! My thought was to do her TFL. She was tight, but.. she was sore over her gluteals, so.. I decided to do those and her SI joint area instead. I had Mike feed her a cookie when I started but she was great! She enjoyed it I think. So... we'll see if that helps her out tomorrow. Hopefully we'll be able to do some hills tomorrow. She didn't get hung up today but she did "bottom out" once. And there were a few steps tracking right where she felt lame. I'm not sure it's sticky stifles that are subtly catching or some other lameness??