Quicky

So.. I still don't have my truck. UGH... Which means poor Funny still doesn't get to go play and that means we keep staying in dressage bootcamp. Which, isn't the end of the world, but we could both really go for a nice long hack!

Luckily today Sharon offered to come get me and take us to Charlie Elliott. Except, I felt a little obligated to take Dan so poor Funny had to stay home. But since it's supposed to rain all day tomorrow I decided to hop on her real quick and sneak in a ride before Sharon came to get me. I figured I'd have about 40 minutes, which should have been plenty of time. So I speed tacked up and we headed to the arena. She was wanting to go exploring the neighborhood, but.. sorry girly! Soon.. I promise... As soon as we can! Except, if we get the truck back by Tuesday, we still can't go Tuesday because we have a Liz lesson, but Thursday for sure! (or Friday.. I can't remember which day I work this week). 

So anyways.. it was a good ride. She was a bit more feral again. I'm not sure if it's just timing... Liz not being there and sort of forcing us to just... be and chill... her forcing us to take longer walk breaks in between... or what? But even with that, we still had some good moments. It just took a bit in between. But we got there. And the longer I rode, the quicker we could get back there. Even after the canter. And our canter was actually quite nice. Not at first.. it was nice but big and quick. But then we settled and got some really nice canter! We went back to the trot again and got some more nice work. We played with shoulder in some and leg yield. And we even did a tiny bit of half-pass at the walk. Mostly because she was getting lateral in her walk. So I tried to ride shoulder in or haunches in, or both to keep her from getting stiff and lateral. We also had to work on our free walk to medium walk because she's gotten to where she wants to snatch the reins out of my hands. She gives me a LOVELY free walk but.. there's no contact. So when I try to take the tiniest bit of contact.. not to bring her up, but just to have a connection, she would throw her head up, invert, and start jigging. So... I took Liz's tactic to heart.. If I shorten up on the reins in a very tiny small amount and you immediately throw your head up and jig, then I'll take up the slack (you offered!) and we'll trot. BUT.. it's gonna be a nice trot. So.. that's what we did. And eventually I think she started to figure it out because she eventually let me have a soft contact and stayed down low and stretchy. We finished with a bit more trot and canter and at one point we even had a really nice working trot to trot lengthen and back to working trot. Whoo hooo!

I did ride in my shorter monostirrups. It's SOOOO weird to me. The XS ones are way too short, even on the longest hole. Like... they probably would be okay if my knee blocks weren't so big, but even still, I wanted them one hole longer. But then the medium ones are way too long, even on the highest hole. It's like literally 1.5" difference... it's the 1.5" that I REALLY WANT MY STIRRUP TO BE! Ugh... So I don't know. I guess I could go back to regular stirrups but this saddle doesn't have a keeper for them. I'm not sure I'm willing to buy a third pair of monoleathers from Bliss... because, they aren't cheap. And seriously though.. there should be a bit more wiggle room! It still doesn't make sense to my brain!

I probably could have ridden longer because Sharon texted that she would be another 30 minutes, but I figured it would be best to drag my arena before all the rain comes. And I wasn't sure if we would get back in time for me to do it after we went riding. And... I didn't want to drill Funny and she was good and we were at a good place to end. So we did. And I speed drug the arena and at least got it done. And we were ready for Sharon!