Today was not brutally hot. Which was amazing!! Because it has been downright miserable! However, it did rain hard at Ashland last night so the arena's were closed. Which, was probably best because my original plan was to ride Lyric at home in the am before it got too hot and then to take Funny on a hack in the woods, bareback potentially so we could splash in the lake. But, since it wasn't too miserably hot, I decided to use my saddle so we could do some trotting. And I figured if the arenas were open (Lucy posted she would update at noon) then perhaps a little flat work. But, God watched out for me. Or for Funny. ;) Lucy didn't open the arenas until after I had left. (well after noon by the way! ha!). Which was good because I really didn't need to do flat work with Funny.
When I caught her at home she came up to say hi but as soon as I went to halter her she tried to run. That's sooooo not like her! Weird. But she loaded up and we got to Ashland. It was starting to get hot but still wasn't as bad as it had been. The clouds left though so it was definitely steaming up. I put the jump saddle on because... no dressage boot camp! We headed out and she was forward but not nearly as rushy as she had been previously. So maybe the microwalk work is working. We opted to hit the hills today and so we zig zagged around and found them. We did trot the gallop track and she got quicker but overall her trot felt more big than quick. It was still quick, but it wasn't as quick as it feels in the dressage arena. Maybe it's because we were out in the open so it felt slower... maybe it's because she could go bigger so it was actually slower just bigger? I don't know. But I did have to do some serious half halting and leg yields to get her barrel moving. She did feel slightly .... asymmetric when I posted on the right diagonal. Very subtle... I don't know why. That right hind has a huge hole in the medial quarter where she blew that abscess out, so maybe that's bothering her? I don't know... It kind of went away towards the end of our ride. We did lots of walking in the woods too. And we saw so much wildlife. She wasn't even spooky with them. The rocks... still spooky. Ha ha! But we saw two armadillos almost under her feet. We saw a bunch of deer. We saw a big black squirrel in the hay field that at first we thought was something bigger first. And then the ptyerdactyl flew out from underneath her nose practically! But she was good! Which was great because I was on the phone at the time! The saddle fitter from California who is a peter horrobin rep and may be able to help me sell my saddles called, so I answered!
We finished up the big hill and then cantered a downed log on the trail and ended up in the cross country field. We did a little bit of trot and it was harder to keep her slow and more balanced. I also cantered both ways. She was a bit more on the muscle in the XC field than out in the regular fields. But we did manage to get some nice work so I quit with that.
We finished up and the arena's were still "will update at noon", so... I decided that was probably best. But we did do a few figure 8 serpentines around the trees to focus on the connection and the outside rein. And she was lovely. I was trying to focus on keeping a soft connection the whole trail ride, but... I kept having to take photos. And then was on the phone for 20 minutes or so, so... she didn't stay on contact a lot of the ride. Which is fine, but my thought was that I could encourage a soft happy contact in her happy place.
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