Lovely Flat Ride

 

 

Ahhh... today was a good day. And I'm grateful because it had the potential to not be. Well... just to not be a day off. ;) But, it was and I was still able to see one horse for a hurt neck, do Da Feng Men in one horse, and do my neuro checkup. AND... ride both girls, shockwave Dan, and have the girls get worked on by Lexi. So yes, a good day. AND.. the rides were great too!

 

I rode Lyric first and she was good. She walked up for a cookie and didn't try to leave when I put the halter on. Yay! We tacked up (after playing dress up with Kelli's saddle pads) and headed up to the arena. I warmed up with a tiny bit of pillar work and then hopped on. In the beginning I started with Tik's energy thing. Where you exhale, go soft, and almost collapse in the saddle and they halt. Then you bring your energy up, like right before you get out of a chair (lift your sternum, bring your energy up, inhale, tighten your muscles) and they should go from halt to walk, or walk to trot, or trot to canter. And... ha! Lyric was a bit of a lazy bum today so she was definitely better at deflating than inflating. BUT... we were able to get some inflation too. 

 

I didn't dwell on it too long and we went to work. While we were working I focused on keeping the connection at a steady 1 or 2 and aiming for mostly 1. And... it actually was quite nice. We were at a 1 probably 70% of the time I think! And it was a soft 1, which is my preference, but it wasn't a 0, so go me. She was still a little fussy in the bridle but not bad. And we got some really nice work. She still feels a hair stiff laterally but is feeling much better longitudinally. And, honestly... she was actually pretty upright and square in her shoulders today, so... maybe that's why she felt a bit less supple sideways, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. We worked on some leg yielding at the walk and trot. She definitely gets more braced at the trot, but she's understanding it now. We also played with shoulder in and haunches in at the walk. And... it's harder going to the left because I think she naturally wants to travel shoulder in to the right. But we made some progress. And haunches in is easier for her. 

 

We also played with the inflating into the canter and... that actually works quite nicely! It really even helped my whole left lead issue. I think when I try to focus on getting the correct left lead I end up sitting too hard. But when I inflated her into it... I lifted and didn't block her. So... we'll have to keep playing with that, but so far, I liked it! She was definitely more up and animated after we cantered, so then we played with deflating a bit again. I also did a tiny bit of a shallow counter canter serpentine. She tried and held it. It was awkward, but again, baby steps. I'm just introducing it so of course it's awkward. That's okay!

 

We finished with some soft trot work and bend and then went to the gate. I made her stand while I opened it, utilizing the deflating. And it got better. Then we walked the hill twice (the tiny hill at the corner) after scaring off momma deer and the twins. Then we headed back to the barn for a rinse and she got to go back out for the rest of the afternoon.

Lexi came out to work on them and I decided to have her do both girls. We started with Lyric and Lexi said she felt tight and blocked along her entire back. She said it started cranially and went all the way to her gluteals. She didn't appreciate back soreness so much as butt soreness, which is what I've been seeing. She got a lot of great releases and Lyric loved it! So hopefully she'll feel looser and happier. I'm also going to get updated feet films and talk to Patrick about whether she needs wedges behind or not.