Winter Music

Poor Lyric. She had another early morning ride and lesson. But I think she had fun! We did a XC lesson this morning with Jacel. We rode with Annabelle and Yeti and Lyric must not be in raging heat anymore because she was back to her normal self. She did say hi to Yeti and then later Bug (Courtneys other horse). She even nibbled Bug's nose. Hee hee.  We walked around the cross country field and did some hills to warm up. Then we went right to work because Jacel thought we had warmed up already, but I guess technically we were. We started off with trotting some fences and then moved on up from there. We had so much fun today! Lyric was MUCH more rideable and not silly. And she's getting so brave. We had two stops but they were totally me riding backwards. When I stayed in a heavy 3 point and kept my shoulders up, she went. Even when I didn't send her... she went. She sometimes took an extra second to process and added but she never stopped or even hesitated. She just... somet...

  Bless her little ginger heart! Baby girl just... had a day!  I got up early to take her to Beth's XC grid clinic at Ashland. She is in heat so she wasn't thrilled about leaving her friends after breakfast but she didn't take more than a minute or two to load. We got to Ashland and got tacked up quickly and headed out to XC. I wasn't quite as early as I wanted so while we weren't late necessarily, we were walking out when it started vs being down there and ready and everyone else had already left the trailers. As I was putting my gloves on (already on and walking towards XC) something spooked her and she spun a hair. Jeepers!! I haven't even gotten myself together yet! But we made it down to the field.  We chatted with Beth briefly and then went to try to warm up. And Lyric was feral! She was bouncing and threatening to buck and just.... slinging her shoulders around. Beth was like "you could just walk her and warm her up through the exercise as we'll ...

 

Lyric was a good girl and let me catch her for our lesson today! Yay! We had a lesson with Jacel at the house as I still don't have a truck. (but tomorrow hopefully!). I rode Funny first and it was Lyrics turn at 9 am. It was soooo freakin' humid though. She was sweating under her mane just standing there waiting her turn. We were both dripping from every pore by the time we were done. And it was *only* 87 degrees. Sigh... But it was a good lesson.   She was kind of lazy at the walk but perked up at the trot. Jacel had us trot through the 10 trot poles and she was good. We did lengthen them out for her though, as she's a long girl. (Her preference is 4' between each while Funny prefers 3.5'). We did that a few times and then we added in some canter. Jacel said that she had a plan while riding Monty for Jean about how to help me with Funny's canter. And it made so much sense. And quite frankly... all of my horses struggle with the left lead canter and I know it...

  Oh I need to do this more often! I think that's part of my new plan. Lunging each horse once a week. I think it was so good for Lyric and it takes some pressure off me.  I did end up putting the equicore band on her although, like with Dan, it slides up her butt cheeks instead of staying down at the "panty line". Which, I'm not sure how it's supposed to work. Guess I need to investigate. Maybe that's the correct way. Ha! (shame on me!). Anyways... we only did 20 minutes because we did have the equicore band on, but she was great. She started off not tracking up but after a little bit she was. And we got some nice reaching and stretching. She even licked and chewed some. And the canter wasn't wild. It was quick.. but she settled. So yay!  Success! I'll definitely add this in to help encourage her to let go of her back. Oh, and.. she was sound today considering she rubbed a giant raw spot on her fetlock. I'm not sure if she was scratching her butt ...

  Lyric got the short end of the stick today and had to get ridden! Funny only got lunged and Dan was supposed to go do his water therapy but... I noticed my tire was about to pop so I had to go get new tires and thus... no water therapy for Dan. BUT... good thing because technically I was contemplating taking Lyric to Aiken to school XC today so... God was watching out for us. And me because I think I do have a cold/mild flu.    Anyways... I rode Lyric today but it wasn't as early as I have been so it was already so hot and humid. We kept it short and sweet and she was good. We had some struggled but seemed to be making some good progress. I got a good bit of nice soft work today with her relaxing into the contact and the contact was even at times and soft and light! I tried really hard to ride her body not her face but I did have to resort to "I half halt and hold until you give" a few times. We finished with some really nice work though!   Then I was mean and made...