We don't always do the ride thing... Learning under fire!

So if you see (yay) in this post… Picture sarcastic  and monotone. (yay)

Okay so usually this comes with pictures, and an update on progress, but we have had rain… And I have had lots of coffee so musings is all ya get (yay)

But I did ride tonight so…. Imagine me, the lights (it was after 6 in the winter so it may as well have been midnight), and Ginger…. Oh and this is after two weeks of sitting so… (another yay)

We have been using a new fangled gadget (will do an entire post about that later with pics) and it has been doing lots on the lunge that I can see in terms of stretching… But I wanted to get on and do some stretchin–stretchy–stretcherton tonight…

That went from maybe, to a um after I warm up?, to a PROBABLY NOT BUD!

Basically my horse was rubbernecking at the rail like she’d seen an accident three car lengths ahead and if she was an eye witness to the carnage it wouldn’t haunt her or her kids in the back of the van for the next five years… Ten if she had a healthy vivid memory…

Sorry where was I?

Oh yeah, we would get a long thoroughbred neck to the left, then back to her regularly scheduled bending program, and back again. So I did whatever any good adoring dressage fan would and asked myself, “What would Carl Hester do?” I know it used to be Anky but she is out… I mean what was with that whole Rolkur thing right? Okay, okay, I know I would give half of my brain matter to be able to ride with a tenth of her ability… Helk I’d even Rolkur little puppies at the pound if it would mean… Kidding folks, kidding!

Wait where was I? Okay, so I was just going to stray away from my usual warm up tonight. The warm-up where I wander around on a long rein amelessly practicing bicycling backwards to loosen up.

Instead tonight we needed to get busy… Or we were going to end up with a “situation”.

So trotting off we go… A red pogo stick and the stiff paranoid rider on her back. The paranoid part comes from the fact that while my horse may be ignoring the shadows, noises, and various things unseen at the present… Because of her energy level I assume that if I spot the invisible ghost in the trees before she does, I’ll somehow be able to stop her from seeing and reacting to its malicious gaze.

Crazier things have happened… No really (yay)…. That one was just to make sure you were paying attention.

Okay so I am all about posting the trot… Especially because my horse is still fitting up…

Detour.

I’ve always felt that posting the trot is imperative to an unfit or young horses development. In reality it all boils down to this. My fat ammy booty is ½ of the time off of my developing horses back. Essentially it is a break from me 50% of the time at one gait. Any kind of break you can give the poor horse yolked into helping you learn is A okay in my book.

I crack myself up… Get it? Booty crack….(LOL!)

But tonight… I felt that any space between me and my horse would only create room for more error, error as in if she decided to leave the space we occupied, I would error in being able to transport with her… Don’t forget there are ghost (nod).

So I sat - Cue the pulling out of hair by every classical rider who is view this. I. am. Sorry.

Look I prayed to the core gods, and asked for super strength to sit as gently as possible… But I sat.

Shwew, now that I’ve shared that little nugget of insanity, I can continue.

The good news is that the giant man aka Ary the Friesian has really worked on my ability to find a nice balance without plop plop plopping on the surface of my saddle, and so even though you’d expect my horse to go super hollow, run for the hills, maybe even post about me on the dressage boards… She actually settled nicely into work after about 5-10 minutes of the tiny mince steps. I kept a very close leg and shorter reins then usual asking for forward into contact and just ready with an even more forward hand whenever she decided to stretch a little.

Reward, reward, reward…. Sometimes I say it allowed while riding that giving of the rein and I say good reward J

Now the tension I have found if you are brave enough…. Come on now, we all have had those MAN UP rides where we had to pull on big girl panties, or breeches what have you…. But if you are brave enough you can use the tension to spice things up a bit.

Walk to canter transitions? No problem. Shoulder ins with energy in the hind leg? Of course!

So we utilized the excitement…. But I wont lie… It took oh about every other stride of me remember to give my inside rein… And even then I felt EVERY mistake that I made with my heightened spidy senses alive and well when I expect my horse to go rocket pony at any minute J

So eventually I had to apply the leg a bunch at the canter as she burned all of her energy offering larger trots with more active steps and biting off more than she could chew essentially fitness wise.

So much so that her halts were on the forehand and lazy by the time we were done…. Had to address that little issue with a walk through the halt a few times…

Tada! Nice late night ride…. And you all thought the mighty TB didn’t have it in her J