Winter Music

Whoo hoo!! Lyric and I had an awesome jump lesson today. Well, it started a little rusty but we finished great! Especially since she's had a week off!   I probably should have taken Funny instead... or ridden her yesterday, but... alas. It is what it is and she did great. She's had the week off while we were at the beach but today was lesson day, so... we jumped. Luckily Laura had just gotten back on Smarty after his neck injections so the plan was to take it kind of easy. Plus it was miserably hot and humid again, so we took it easier because of that. Supposedly. ;)  I got on and walked around a bit and Lyric was a slug. We picked up the trot and she was not mincy and "navicular" but she was just... lazy feeling. She was in heat and wanted to stand next to Smarty the whole time, so that didn't help. I had her trot for a bit and then finally got her to stretch some. And then she started moving more freely. So then I put her together on a shorter rein and she felt ...

  Ooof, today is not cooperating!! I had a not so great ride on Funny, cut short (kind of) by the early vet arrival. So after the vet left (for the dogs and cats) and Mike and I ate, I decided to go ahead and try to ride at home. I was debating Ashland, but the weather was looking iffy on the radar. So... argh, I decided to just try to ride at home. So I grabbed Lyric and got her to the trailer. Brushed her and realized... what's your right hind shoe doing? Oh... it's twisted half off. Ugh... So I pulled it and texted Patrick. And turned her back out.  Luckily, (but also slightly inconveniently timed) Patrick texted me to tell me he'd be there in an hour to put her shoe back on today. :) Except it was when I had just gotten on Dan and walked to the XC field for a nice long hack... so, back we came. I managed to sneak in a very short ride, hose him off and get back and grab Lyric and have her ready right as Patrick backed in. Phew. ;) Luckily she was close to the barn when D...

  But it wasn't really worth it. Ha. Or successful. I don't know. It's hot.. it's humid. We're miserable. But we did ride. It just wasn't a good ride. It wasn't horrible. Maybe my expectations were just too high. Maybe I was cranky. Maybe all of the above. I was hoping that she'd feel so much better after Kim "got her hock bones moving" and flocked the saddle. But she didn't. She almost felt lame today. But she's also been off previcox. And maybe it was just a fluke. Maybe I was riding poorly. I think I got a little handsy.    I tried to take a moment and regroup. And it helped. It really wasn't a horrible ride. It just wasn't super. She was a bit more braced again and lost her hind end once. But yay for only once! It was on a change of bend too, so that's tricky. But we did have some good moments. And then we worked on our canters and transitions. And it wasn't bad. And then we finished with the trot poles with the midd...

  Today Kim came back to check Lyrics saddle. And it fits her great. She tweaked the flocking as it had settled a bit in the back and was creating mild soreness. She fluffed up the front and it doesn't feel downhill anymore. But she was super pleased with her progress. She said she looked fantastic and so much better! She did think she had filled out some because we were thinking we were going to have to narrow the saddle down for her. But we didn't. Although the extra flocking did help. But still. She said she looked more uphill. And she does! I almost think she looks a bit more narrow/roofy, but I also wonder if that's because she's lifting her thoracic sling more and her withers "popped" more. Kim agreed and said that despite her looking more narrow in the withers, she was actually wider. Yay! All the right things!  She checked the loxley jump saddle and said that it was okay but not great. The tree points were average length to long but they were angled fo...

Ok ma'am! Where is THAT canter when I ride you please???  \   They were silly. I was out bush hogging and they followed me into that pasture and then stood at the fenceline. I passed them multiple times and they wouldn't move and I eventually needed to mow close to them, so I came close. And ... shenanigans!! hee hee. Silly ponies. 

  Hee hee. She's sneaky today! In excellent ways and hilarious ways! Okay girl... way to make me eat my words. I'm really feeling guilty that I've said "she's just average" on multiple instances. Because... way to up your game girly! :)    I opted to pay for the covered today because it was hot and we wanted to ride and Lyric sweats soooo much. So we did. And oh my gosh, I forgot how lovely this covered really is. Like.. man! It's shaded... there's a good breeze... the footing is good... the mirrors are so helpful... and it's at Ashland! Ahhhh. I wish I didn't have to pay $25 each time to use it because I would do so many more rides in it if I could afford to. Especially in the summer! So much in the summer.    We tacked up and did a nice long warm up to get to the covered arena. It was sad seeing the barns empty and the pastures being taken down, but... the covered still looks great. We had a nice warm up walk and a tiny bit of trot to get the...

  Ooof, I thought it was a bit less muggy this morning! I woke up around 7 am but then was so exhausted I decided to go back to bed for an hour or so. This heat and humidity is doing me in. When I fed it was bearable... not nearly so steamy as it has been so I was optimistic. I had plans to ride with friends at 2 pm, so... I decided to ride the girls at home. I figured it would be quicker and give me time to do both. I decided to ride Lyric first because she sweats so much! She has so much body mass... poor girl. Except, I think she probably ended up having the most humid ride of the day, so not sure it did us any good. I feel like Funny had a breeze for her ride. And Dan had some rain and a good breeze. Sorry girly! I tried!   We tacked up and I walked to the arena. Twice.. ha ha.. Somehow I dropped a glove on the way and missed it when we backtracked, so I looked in the trailer... no glove.. So we headed back up and then I found it. Doh. Oh well. We did a little turn on the ...

Ooof, that was a bad idea. It was still super hot today, but then a storm popped up and we got a little bit of rain. It dropped the temps dramatically, and was like... 87 degrees instead of 97. And there was a bit of a breeze and not quite so miserably humid. But, by the time I decided to actually ride and got Lyric and got tacked up... the humidity snuck back in and it was steamy and miserable. Ugh.... And I didn't even put a bra back on and my shirt was still soaking wet.  But we were already tacked up, so I figured we'd keep it short. We hiked up there and did a tiny bit of in hand work. I tried the turn on the haunches left and kept her in left bend and she actually did it, so... that's good. I need to practice that more without me on her to help her realize she can do it. Then I hopped on. And realized I had forgotten the darn half pad again. Whooops! Sigh. Oh well. It actually didn't feel like it was sitting that low today.. maybe I had moved the saddle farther ba...