Rainy Freebie

 I managed to sneak in a ride this morning. I had a cancellation and was still able to sneak in two of my clients who were on the "wait list" for a spot and still got to ride. I probably even had time (though barely and would have had to gotten up earlier) to go to Ashland but sadly the arena's were closed because of the rain. But it finally rained!!!! I even got my grass seed and fertilizer down last night. From 5:30 to 7 pm. In the dark. And rain. But I did it. And then it rained a bit more today after I left to go work, so hopefully it'll cool off enough now that it will grow. Because it was NOT cool today! 

 

It was hot and steamy this morning. It started to drizzle a tiny bit but then once I got Funny caught (she played hard to catch for a minute) it stopped. We rode at home which was fine because I had opened up the arena so we could practice our test but I would have really liked to have been able to use the actual arena at Ashland. Oh well. It works. I'm grateful I have an arena. And eventually, (maybe while i'm rehabbing myself) I will set up a more permament marker on the fenceline after measuring out the proper arena size. And maybe even set up letters. Ooooh, that's actually a great idea. Ha ha... I'm gonna run out of time to do all the things I've got planned for rehabbing! 

 

We walked up to the arena and walked around a bit and then started trotting. She was a bit hyped up and even spooked/squirted away once, although I couldn't ever see what got her riled up. Maybe Jean's horses? I decided to try an exercise I saw on facebook and I liked it. It was transitions on the circle. You ride three quarters at one gait, one quarter at another gait, and repeat. So I started trotting and then walked a quarter, then trotted and then walked the same quarter. After about 3 circles, i started doing a circle and a quarter before I asked for the walk, so our walk section moved. She was quite nice and lovely with it. We started off tracking right. So then we swapped to the left and did the same thing. She wasn't quite as soft tracking left, but we kept at it. I added some ten meter circles within our big circle and that helped get her more supple without me wanting to fight her. So then I tried it at the canter. And... it was really helpful. It helped me to think about my transitions and helped me finesse them. She got pretty light and responsive and our transitions got much smoother. Cool!

 

We took a little breather and then I figured I"d try the test. And as soon as I picked her up, she got all tense and jiggy. Okay... seriously?? Am I that intense? Sigh. We did some more transitions and some leg yielding and then she finally took a breath and settled so we started our test. I tried to ride it like we did in our lesson.. thinking half pass or shoulder fore and even sitting some. It helped, but then it was also still not great. The free walk went disastrously. So we started again and it got better. The canter transitions still sucked. So after we finished our test (still tap dancing in the halts too) I played with the canter part. I practiced it and figured out some helpful hints. If I ride shoulder fore in the trot, then sit the trot and think of leg yielding her into the corner, we get a lovely upward into the canter. And then, if I ride the "octagon" in the canter circle, and sit on my outside seat bone, it's better. The last quarter of the circle, I need to start half halting and preparing.. then as we come out of the circle, lift with my core and think shorten, and then close my thighs and we should get a decent downward transition too. It also helped if I sat the trot in my transitions, up and down. We played a little bit with the halt but I didn't want to make it a big thing. 

 

She finished pretty nicely and gave me a lovely canter upward and downward to a nice centerline and halt and salute, so we quit with that. Plus.. it's so hot and humid, we were both sweaty. I even had to rinse her down. With cold water! She was dirty enough she probably needed a bath, but... I figured it might rain again so why bother. 

 

Tomorrow I'll take Dan to Dauset for a trail ride and then I need to figure out my plan with her. I've got tomorrow and Sunday wide open, and can hopefully ride Saturday too but am going mountain biking with Mike. Granted, my bike only lasts 1 hour but it's 2 hours of drive time too. Plus I still have to clean out and organize the trailer and allllll the packing to do. I've still got 9 days, but.. also have to work! I wanted to ride the test at Ashland... I wanted to do another trail... I wanted to practice banks, ditches and water some more. And I kind of wanted to take her to Hard Labor for a nice hack/fitness day too. Laura wanted to hack Sunday and maybe jump. So... ack! And then Tuesday I'll have Jacel lessons I think. I don't know. I'll have to figure out. I feel like if I dressage tomorrow at Ashland she'll be annoyed. So in the ideal world I would do that Saturday. Maybe that's what I'll do. Hack tomorrow at Hard Labor... (Friday might be less crowded than Sat or Sun), dressage Sat at Ashland, and then Sunday hack at Ashland and play on the XC course with Laura. There we go!! Plan made :) Now to hopefully be able to keep it. 

Fancy and Feisty

 Liz lesson. Rode Lyric first because fashion show afterwards.

walk in beginning was great but then started to get more animated once we thought about working vs just talking and leisurely plodding, so went to trot quickly. Took a bit to settle but figured it out. Used counter bend.... hold... inside bend... hold... not see sawing,..... slow methodical softening. leg yielding a little. got her quite nice... had to make sure to let go of the inside rein.. but also had to use it to finesse. outside rein creates round though and works. lift my hands. don't drop them. wide hands... give her room.

picked back up and she was feisty so instead of fighting her, I let her canter but insisted it was a nice working canter. and she was good. managed a few circles of lovely canter before she decided it was easier to trot and that's partly because we spiraled in and made the circle smaller. Not to punish. 

got some really nice trots and canters after. Like... liz kept saying "ten"! stayed nice and soft and round, but took quite the finagling. Not just riding her face... but riding her body. Shoulder in, haunches in, half pass, leg yield... keep her thinking. I ride better when it's a bit more complicated. 

ran through the test. Immediately she got hot and bouncy and rearing in place. liz blamed lightning... i tried not to blame myself but probably me. first run through was horrible. horrible!! So then we talked it rhought and decided to try riding it like a second level test... like haunches in down the sides, shoulder in on the long sides, shoulder in on the circle, think of half passing in on the circles, etc. make it harder for her. and it was much better.

plan my turns and transitions better. the figure 8 at the trot is two touching circles, not an infinity symbol. bend, bend, straight, straight, new bend, new bend. talked about halt because it was awful today. tap dancing. like... she didn't walk off, but she would stand still.. then lift one hoof ever so slightly in place and tap it. Seriously funny?? That feels personal! But liz said no.. just so much energy she is having to dance. like the kid that needs a fidget spinner thing. okay... not sure we can fix it before the show. But tried to walk a few steps in and out of it to help. Tried to halt from the hind end. tried to soften the reins just a bit when we do halt and then not pick back up til after she walks off. all helpful. but not likely to fix it in time. Don't drill it because it pisses her off. Randomly just halt from a few steps of walk (or more) and exhale and praise her. Scratch her shoulder. do the shoulder scratch in my salute too. And just... let it go. Yes, I"m losing "easy" points, but it's not easy for us and while it's two sets of points.. let it go and make up for it elsewhere... fighting it won't get me better scores in those two places and will likely decrease my scores elsewhere. 

good pony. Kind of. ;) Ha ha. Seriously.. she was trying but she is fit and was ready to go! And grace stayed int he car because it was misting on and off. Funny was staring hard into the back of the car, willing her to come out.

fashion show after... found both jog outfits and decided on all three show outfits... will likely do the same breeches and coat for stadium and dressage, but it's just so pretty. And the awards/ribbon photos will be in stadium clothes, so... might as well do the taupe coat for that too. And then the pretty taupe and baby pink sparkle pad. :) liz is loaning me a stock tie and maybe a pair of breeches too. :) 

Good girl! Then we let her say hi to grace and she was happy.

photos: 11-26 liz lesson

Freakin' Rockstar!

 

 Holy crud can this mare JUMP!!! We had so much fun today! And we almost didn't go! I woke up and it looked a little rainy. I checked the weather and it said that it was supposed to start raining around 9 am and would basically rain all day. Ugh. I looked at the radar map and it showed light rain starting soon and then turning heavier, but... no yellow or red. Sigh... there was part of me that wanted a nice rainy day to just chill and relax, but... I will have plenty of those come mid December, so... just enjoy the beautiful weather while I can!!! I was supposed to have a jump lesson with Liz and then Laura wanted to hack after, so I was texting them both trying to figure out what to do. We were all checking multiple weather sites. Finally, we decided to just do it. It kept getting pushed back a little bit and despite it saying it was supposed to be raining already, it wasn't. We figured that we could ride in a little bit of rain and hopefully at least get something accomplished. We sort of tried to get there earlier than originally planned, but... by the time I got it all figured out, I didn't get to leave any earlier by the time I got all the things done. As it was, I didn't even get breakfast! That's okay, I chomped some peanuts on the way there. 

 

I got to Ashland before Liz and got tacked up. And the sun was starting to come out. And while it was breezy and there was a chill in the air, the sun was warm. Liz laughed that she didn't even bring her sunglasses and was dressed for cold and rain. Ha ha. SOOOOO glad we came despite the weather channel because it never did rain. Not the entire day!! Well, finally right around dinnertime, it drizzled for about 20 minutes. Barely drizzled. But it did get cloudy and chillier, but luckily not til later. Anyways... I headed to the jump arena and we walked around a bit to warm up. We had timed it this way on purpose... I figured that the jumps would still be set up from the show and I'm pretty sure the last rider did "training light" so it should have been set at training/novice. (Or maybe it was set at training, and the XC was the "light" portion?? but regardless it was fine). That way Liz and I didn't have to set jumps and we could ride the course. Except I had forgotten to come and look at what the course was, so we had to make it up. 

 

Once Liz got there and Funny said hi to Grace, I started trotting and did some cantering. She did well. She was quick and forward but soft and responsive. And then Laura showed up on Smarty. She had just moved back to oxford manor and hacked over to hang out. Once Funny said hi to Smarty, we went back to warming up. She was trotting around on the buckle happy as a clam. Sure she wasn't "on the bit" but she was lifted in her back, floating, and soft. Too bad I can't do a whole dressage test on the buckle. Ha ha. I even tried it at the canter. It started okay but then I had to take up the reins. 

Then Liz started to tell me the course she made up. Cool... got it. But... uh, can I warm up first?! ha ha. She dropped the "watermelon" jump down to a small vertical and made me trot it. Ugh. Okay. But, we actually did trot it!! Nicely. Then she raised it back to the full height vertical. And made us trot it a few more times. It was okay if Funny picked up a canter stride or two, but the goal was to go into it with a nice trot and *allow* the canter if she felt she needed it. And she mostly put in a stride or two of canter. But she also trotted it once! Like an actual trot to a jump. Wowza! And it was a BIG vertical too! Yikes. I started out feeling like I was standing in my stirrups. Like.. standing straight up instead of getting into jump position. Liz said it was not so much standing in my stirrups as pulling back on the reins. Ah, so I fixed it the next time. Yay!

So then she told me to do go the course. And so we started off. And got yelled at. NO!!! ha ha... What?!? She said that we went straight into "hamster mode" and I needed to not get ahead of myself and start of running. So we came back to the walk, took a breath, tried to get her to settle and then picked up the trot. And despite me continuing to make excuses about how hard it is, and "tell that to Funny" etc, she.. .really did settled down. Nice! Okay... okay... fair enough. We picked up a canter and then started our course. And she freakin' nailed it!!! Except the one vertical that we got in tight too and I panicked and asked her to add and then abandoned her. But she still made it over without pulling a rail. It was just ugly. But then we fixed it and the whole rest of the course was just lovely!! She felt like she was jumping sooo good. I played a little bit with lifting her shoulders like in my lesson with Jacel and then rode the lines LIz and I had talked about... riding to the apex instead of cutting my turns too tight. I also did my "check in" in the spots we talked about... before the turns... and in the long spots... and then stayed supportive in the curve and to the jump. I had to stay soft in my hands two to three strides before the jump. Fix the canter before those last three strides and then soften but don't abandon. But then in the two stride, we all know she's gonna get in tight because she jumps so bold, so I was able to keep my body upright and sneak in a little half halt in the two stride and she shortened. It was such a nice feeling that she is being so responsive! Yahoo!!

So then we played with a few more things. We did some harder lines and then some longer lines to work on keeping her from getting too flat. I started to struggle with the oxers. I felt like I was getting a little too far back from them, but I couldn't quite get her to the base without getting too deep. Liz said that it's because I wasn't fixing my canter far enough back. So when I did, it totally worked. Duh, but.. harder to do. Then we realized that when I'm tracking right, I tend to half halt only with my left hand, which is correct. When I'm tracking left, I tend to half halt with both hands at the same time, which pisses Funny off and changes her balance. So... focus on half halting with only one hand, the outside rein. And we were struggling with  our turn on the left lead coming to an oxer around the corner. She kept falling in and Liz told me that I was closing that door with my inside hand. I was trying to cross the neck. Damn you you stupid left hand! So... when I widened my hands, and didn't close that rein/door, and sat on my right/outside seat bone, she rode balanced into my right rein around my left leg and we had a great approach and got the nice spot. 

We also played with jumping the left side of the oxer on purpose to create a better line for the roll back. And that was a bit tough because Funny started to drift back to center, like a good girl. So I had to remember to hold my inside leg on and support her. We kept getting a funky distance and Liz told me to let it go. She was learning a new thing and it was a big oxer! But then we nailed it the next time, so yay. But she was right. Funny was figuring out what I was asking. 

So yeah... SO MUCH FUN! And not a single drop of rain. ;) Afterwards, Liz had me walk the line. She reminded me that the way to find where the apex of your turn is is to walk straight away from the jump and then once you are finally parallel to the next jump, that's the apex of your square turn. Which is a nice reminder because I would have totally cut my corner off and drifted really far in on some of those turns. Then I got back on and Laura and I went for a little hack. Liz and Grace joined us for a little bit of it, which was awesome. The woods are so pretty this time of year! 

 

 

When I left Laura at the corner of the Oxford Manor hay field to head back, she yelled out that she saw the coyote! I wonder if it was the same one Funny and I had seen? Maybe not. Funny and I had a nice walk and trot back home. 

 

  

I'm getting so excited about the three day. We aren't gonna win the dressage, but I'm feeling much better about it. And the jumping is gonna be fine. And a blast. And roads and tracks is gonna be a blast! And I do think she's in a good place fitness wise! So yay!!!