Quicky

 

I snuck in a ride today. I rode Lyric this morning and then had a chiropractic appointment. Kelli and I had tentative plans to ride after but since it was close to 3:15 when I got home, I honestly wasn't expecting her to be able to ride. She called and said that she was almost home and would check with Brian but still had to unload groceries and feed horses, but could hopefully join me. Except... at this point... I was sort of thinking I'd just ride at home because it would be easier and quicker and maybe I could sneak in both ponies that way. BUT... I also would have been happy to go with her. So, since she said she would need a bit to figure out if she even could, I decided to just hop on Funny and get in a short ride. Either I'd ride for a few and then hop off and swap out to Dan and go meet her at Ashland or I'd just finish riding Funny and then ride Dan at home. She still had to do those things, so I figured I had a little bit of time. And... realistically, she wasn't going to be able to meet me anyways. So I took a chance. 

 

I tacked up and we headed up to the arena. Because it was so hot already and they had been out and we hacked up to the arena, I did a little bit of walk work but picked up the trot fairly quickly. We did practice our walk to trot transitions and.. if I really keep my hips swinging, she stayed pretty loose. I did still cheat a bit with not getting too tight of reins before we trotted and then once we were trotting, shortening them up a tiny bit. But it really seemed to go well today. She stayed mostly soft and fluid in her walk. She wasn't always "on the bit" but she didn't get combative or jiggy either. Yay! We did some more trotting and didn't drill the walk but we did do some transitions. I was about 23 minutes into our ride when Kelli called. She said she was just about ready to go grab her horse and head out but then the kids finally texted back as we were talking... and then she decided it was just going to be like pounding a square peg into a round hole and decided to just stay home. I told her I was fine either way, but it did show some pop up thunderstorms and as we were talking her phone alerted her to possible storms. (And shocker... it didn't actually storm here... ). So we decided not to go to Ashland. So I carried on with my ride.

 

We played a bit more and got some nice trot work, although she is still leaning hard into my left leg. It's better if I push her haunches out, keep my body in the outside stirrup AND bend my elbow back to create bend vs a diagonal rein or opening rein. We got some good moments. And her canter was quite nice today. I lifted my hands a little and it was better. Like in my Liz lesson. We also got some nice leg yields, especially when I used my weight and seat aids vs my hands. Duh! I also played with the sit trot and some shoulder in. 

 

We finished up with a nice trot both ways to a nice halt. Good girl!! Well worth it!