Venturing out

Lance and I have gotten in some good work since our lesson with Julie, in spite of a crazy schedule on my part. I jealously guarded a small window of time for riding this evening in between homeschool co-op in one town and Brian's fencing lesson in another.

An aside. Brian was a little snotty about my wanting time to ride, saying "I didn't know your horse was so important to our family." I told him that I get up before he and his dad do, stay up later than he and his dad do, work three part-time jobs, cook, clean, shop, and provide Mom's Taxi Service. My horse time is necessary for me and my mental health. So YES, time on my horse IS IMPORTANT TO THIS FAMILY BECAUSE IT IS IMPORTANT TO ME!

Brian asked if I wanted to ride down the road with him. He finally saved up enough money to buy a nice bicycle, so he wanted to ride it while I rode Lance. Given the unpredictability Lance has developed when being ridden off property since all the neighborhood construction projects started, I had some questions about the wisdom of this idea, but getting out of the arena with its rapidly drying sand footing sounded like a good idea. So down the road we went.

We did a combination of riding and leading. When Lance got tense, I got off and we kept going. When he settled down, I got back on. Overall I think it was a successful outing, with a few small dragons slain, a change of scenery, quality time with my son, and exercise for all. Lance and I finished up with some trot/canter work in the arena (we just walked on our road ride), and called it good.

We're supposed to get a little rain over the next day or so, which should improve the footing in the arena.

Our right shoulders

Lance and I had an early-morning lesson with Julie today. She is leaving this week for another stint as a groom and trainer's assistant in Florida, so I wanted good dose of critique and instruction before she left. I also needed some video footage to go with my application to be a demo rider at the NW Horse Fair & Expo on March 22. I don't really expect to be selected, but you never know until you try. It would be a free opportunity for feedback, and a good excuse to "clean up and go to town."

Anyway, back to our lesson. Julie had lots of good things to say about Lance's gaits, frame, and execution of various exercises; we've done our homework! But there is always room for improvement, and today what needed improvement were both Lance's and my right shoulder.

When tracking right, I need to keep my right shoulder back. It wants to stay forward, which handicaps my horse; when I DO put it back, my outside leg comes forward! I couldn't help but laugh at how difficult it was for me; I really have to practice The Twist or rather, keeping all my body parts independent. When I get it, Lance is free to move ever so much better.

As for Lance's right shoulder, he has always had a tendency to pop it out when tracking to the left. I need to use my outside aids and "ride his shoulders;" in other words, keep him properly aligned with shoulders in front of haunches. Again, when I do, his gaits and movements improve dramatically.

Here are some snippets of works in progress, and then a run through First Level Test 3 which went okay.

Rain dance

Today both the weather and my health were better, so I got to play with my pony. It was dry all day – until I went down to saddle up. Oh well, it wasn't supposed to rain hard or last long, so I persisted, and we had a good dance in the drizzle. I didn't bother to set up our trot poles since Lance didn't work much last week; we just schooled gaits and transitions, which were very good. I've been trying to keep my inside leg at the girth and my outside leg well back to contain Lance's haunches as Julie had me do in our last lesson; what a difference that has made! (Don't ask me what I've been doing all these years when I thought I was riding correctly....) Oh, and for the first time Lance rocked the difficult exercise of leg yield down the wall in trot. Woot!

Seahorse

It's been a wet week. I managed to get a ride in Tuesday after work during a lull in the rain, although the arena was pretty wet. While riding I started coughing, and realized that after working with sick people for weeks, I was finally succumbing. Drats.

This morning looked like this:

I didn't have the energy to ride when the faucet turned off for awhile this afternoon, but I did turn the Big Red Goober out for a bit to stretch his legs. He ran off to take a bath in the wet sand, and then spent most of his time being goobery.  ;-)

When I put him back in his stall with a treat ball full of hay cubes to play with, he was creating puddles. Someone is going to need a good grooming to fluff up that insulting hair once he's dry!

Super Boy

While others sat in their seats, I sat on my horse. Really happy with his trot/canter and canter/trot transitions this evening! This was my "half-time break;" then it was back to work on taxes.