Winter Music

 Today we packed a lot in. ;) Which was rather silly as it was SOOO hot again. Ugh. But oh well. We all survived. Lyric and I loaded up and headed to Ashland to ride with Kelli and Marvin. We went to the arenas and did some dressage.    Lyric was pretty darn good! She was forward and fairly relaxed today, although she had a few moments of tension. She was also twisting a tiny bit in the poll tracking right. But we had a good ride. We played with shoulder in at the trot, baby lengthenings, leg yields at the trot, and shallow counter canter serpentines. She was so good!    Then we went for a hack. I mentioned to Kelli that I had told myself I wanted to jump fences every time I was out at Ashland because she gets so nutted up in her brain, so she told me to do it. So.. we did. Except it was awful. I picked up the trot and jumped a handful of jumps but she want all squirrely and threw her shoulders around and was bulging and sideways. Then she tried to run at them. ...

    So I really do think she feels better with her high heels! She's not as reactive in her rump when I brush her and she felt pretty good today! We rode at home and had a good ride. We just dressaged and worked on even contact, going into the outside rein, staying soft in your body and barrel, and not being a slug. She's definitely not as lazy as she had been. Maybe it really was the muscle relaxers??    We played with the left lead canter depart as it's a bit sluggish. I'm sure it's me, but I had to work on myself too. We also played with a tiny baby counter canter to help strengthen her. We played with a tiny baby lengthen at the trot and a little bit of leg yielding at the trot.  Then when we were done we hacked home in the pasture and we trotted over the little log. Then we did the medium one! Which is not that big but it also had a "tree" sprouting out from the middle of it. And she jumped it! Good girl!  

In an efforts to be good and get my errands done and study... (except I could only handle one lecture tonight and now I need a brain break... so hopefully I'll get back to studying soon)... I lunged Lyric today. I figured it was a good thing and would only help her and certainly saved me time. Plus, she worked hard last weekend so, I figured today was a good day to lunge.    She was good. She seems a bit stiffer lunging to the right.... she wants to lean instead of stepping out into the left shoulder. Which fits... she's always leaning in on that right shoulder. But at the end we got some nice work. We also cantered a little bit. And did the trot poles. Good pony. She's so goofy! She's become ONE OF US!!!! :) I love it!    

Well... we did it! We got to another horse show. And despite the weather, we actually finished! As opposed to not even starting last time we were at Poplar. (that was the show that we went to warm up for it and she was practically 3 legged lame. She ended up having a pebble stuck in her shoe, but then was still lame... and it was raining... and I had that horrible eye ulcer, so we just went home the next morning).    I was smart and had taken the Friday off so we got to go school and have fun. I rode Dan Friday morning before we left as I had spent a good chunk of Thursday packing and prepping. I gave Lyric a bath since I had warm water, although she wasn't that dirty. Then I loaded her up and we headed out. We made good time and despite the forecast predicting rain ALL day Friday, we got lucky. No rain other than a little bit of drizzle here and there on the way there. We got unloaded and set up and parked and still no rain. And.. it's kind of nice. I can leave a stall chain ...