Fatigue

Sadly, I have not yet managed to ride this week, yet. I've been heads down in release hell for a Big Giant Project™ that mercifully was released today. What follows is an accounting of my ride on Sunday. I had to work Sunday morning, and I finally left the office around 1700 or so. I almost didn't ride, because I was thoroughly spent, but I looked out in the pasture, and Zigs popped his head up over the round bale and pricked his ears. I rolled my save versus cute, failed, changed and went to tack him up.

For the past couple of Sundays, I've been working on jumping. I rather like this arrangement, and plan to continue it, however this past Sunday, I didn't feel up to jumping so I decided that I'd work on Two-Point instead. after warming up, I got up in two-point, and rode the entire Intro A dressage test. Yes, that includes transitions. As an entirely random side note, I have decided to call the preceding exercise "Penance to Epona". Anyway, it felt like I did a pretty good job of keeping my heels down and my shoulders back, but I think I wasn't relaxing my hip enough, because I didn't really feel my hip angle closing. My knees were definitely working properly though. Transition-wise, I actually had more trouble with trot/Canter than I did Canter/Trot. I'm guessing that's probably because Zigs is used to having my seat bones as a cue. He doesn't really know the word, which is something that I should work on. Or, at least, I'm pretty sure he doesn't know "Canter". The handful of times I've tried longing him, whenever I've told him to canter, that apparently meant, "stop what you're doing and turn around to look at me". Silly Thoroughbred.

After Penance to Epona, I cantered around in two-point, which Ziggy thought was fantastic fun. I must say, for this segment, I really wasn't paying attention to my form. After the week I'd had, I just wanted to feel the wind in my hair, and not think about anything. I am happy to report that the desired effect was achieved. I only wish that my pasture was slightly bigger so that I had more room to run Zigs before having to turn him. But, it's more room than I had at the place I boarded him. I finished up the ride by doing an exercise that Duchess' mom taught me. you start out pointed at an angle, walk 10 meters, turn on the forehand, walk the opposite 10 meters, and repeat until you reach the opposite end of the arena.

It went pretty well for the first few turns on the forehand, but as time went on, Zigs started going way behind the bit, and nothing I did seemed to put him back on it. I thought at first I may have been using too much rein, so I let it out until I had loops, and he was still going behind the bit, so I tried pushing him more forward, which didn't help either. The only way I could get him to take his chin out of his chest was to put him on the buckle. I'm guessing it was because his lesson timer went off, but I'll try it again on my next ride when he's fresh and see if I get the same results.

My plan is to ride tomorrow. I'm feeling pretty puny, so it will probably be a more relaxed ride. The weeks of stress have caught up with me, and I think I might be fighting off a little bug. I suppose it would also help if I stopped writing this, and went to bed, so I think that's what I'll do.