To ride dressage is to dance with your horse, equal partners in the delicate and sometimes difficult work of creating harmony and beauty.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Trot on!

Russell has taken two steps forward this weekend.

1) Rick said we can add (a little) trotting to our short rides.

2) Russell got to go out on pasture today. Rick led him up to the section closest the other three horses in their separate pasture so he didn't have an excuse to tear around, and he's happily - quietly! - grazing away.

I'm ridiculously excited over these baby steps!

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Arena argyle

We are having an unusually wet June, so I ride Russell when I can - like yesterday. We're still walking for 15 minutes at a time, but I do throw in some lateral work (shoulder-in, travers, renvers, leg yield, half-pass) to keep it interesting and increase the required effort slightly. When I was finished, I noticed our tracks in the rain-smoothed sand made a rather nice pattern!