After Work

 

Ugh... we're so over this weather!! It's miserable!! It's so humid. Soooo soooo humid! And hot, but more so so humid. I was supposed to have 7 horses today and then a shockwave... but it turned into 3 horses and I forgot about the shochwave. Since it was so hot I decided to just leave it at the three and not add in extra patients and then maybe I could go home and ride! Ha! First... it was WAY too hot and humid after I finished with the three. And then, I had forgotten about the shockwave. And of course they were literally 5 minutes from each other... and she couldn't get off work and back in time.. So.. rather having scheduled the 3 for the end of the day and riding when it was (presumably) cooler, I was dumb. Oh well. At least she was only 20 minutes away, so I just came home and sat on the couch and ate lunch and cooled off and then went back out. When I did get home it had cooled off a tiny bit.. maybe.. kind of... sort of. Ha. But I wanted to ride dangit. So I did. But I didn't ride at home. It was way too hot for an arena ride, even with the arena being slightly in the shade. Plus I wanted to practice my dressage test but my arena is still full of the obstacles. 

 

So I grabbed Lyric and hosed her down and we headed to Ashland. We tacked up and took a nice long warm up hack through the woods, down towards the lake, and then up through the cross country field. They have moved the jumps around so I was trying to figure out the course and see if there were any jumps I would need to panic about. Not really. :) We did walk up and down the bank though as we meandered through. Then we hacked up to the arenas again. By now it was 7:30 and the arenas were completely shaded. 

 

So we did a short ride. She was quite good. We ran through the test once or twice and she did well. Then we played a little bit with shorten and lengthen in the canter. We played with some leg yields. She got a little bit tight and braced, and a little stiff tracking left, but I played with my body position and it got a little better. I have to remember to ride her shoulders. And when we're tracking left, it helps a little bit if I think haunches out. I also have to make sure that the outside rein controls the straightness. And while she feels very straight and without flexion to the inside that way, her balance is so much better. So I think I'll just have to ride her almost counter flexed tracking to the left to keep her body lined up. And then hopefully she'll get stronger and I can ask for some flexion. And she's more "through" that way too. We ended on a really good note and then went for a cool down hack.

 

We hacked back out to cross country and walked and trotted in the water and out the up bank and then trotted the medium up bank and walked through the ditch. Then we headed to the lake. It was so pretty with the setting sun and the bugs dancing on the top of the lake. Lyric didn't think it was pretty though. She thought it was a bit scary. Hee hee. So we didn't splash or play or drink. Sorry girl, I tried. We hacked back via the woods. She was so sweaty!! It makes me laugh at how much darker her neck is when she's sweaty than her mane. 

 

She got a nice long rinse off and I had to giggle at her faces. It was a good and fun ride. Now to go home and get everyone fed, including me!



 









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