On the Importance of Having a Plan

Well, I guess they can't always be good rides, can they? After work, I had to run to the feed store and get feed for all my critters, and by the time I got home, it was pretty clear that I only really had time to ride one horse. Since Ziggy's just now getting back in to regular work, I figured a day off wouldn't hurt.

I was pretty tired, so I never really developed a solid plan for my ride with Shadow. I got as far as, "keep him stretching", and that's really about it.. The good news is that I'm to the point where I can feel when my position is wrong, the bad news is that I wasn't really able to do much about it. That being said, I had a fair bit of success keeping him stretching in the walk, although when I moved to trot, he kept hollowing and pulling his head out of the stretch. I had a moderate amount of success in getting him to stretch back into it. It has to be a strength thing.

I also tried a bit of canter, but due to my position not being all that great, the up transitions were rough. I did get him to stretch in the canter, but I could tell that my left seat bone wasn't solid in the saddle, so that made it a bit difficult to keep him from cheating on the turns. After cantering for a while, I realized that I was tired, my mind wasn't focused, and I was nearly out of light. When I untacked, despite the short ride (a little over 20 minutes), I was glad to see that Shadow had sweated a pretty good amount in all the right places, so at the very least, he got a good workout. Tomorrow, I'll try again, and hopefully A) have a better plan, and B) have enough time to ride both horses.

Roundness

It's been a bad day, and I'm not much in the mood for clever grammar, witty quips, or italics, so this is going to be short, and to the point. I rode Ziggy today, and in my warmup, something just didn't seem right. So, I called Zhizhu to come out and watch Ziggy for a while. Long story short, he was off. Of course, I immediately dismounted, untacked and cold hosed all 4 legs. It looks like it's something in his back end. He does have two little cuts just below his fetlock on each leg that are swollen, which might be the problem, but I'll be setting up an appointment with the vet.

Magic Trainer Dust plzkthxbai!

If you are reading this, that means that you are reading the second post of the day. Let it never be said that I am not a man of my word! But why two posts, where one would suffice? Especially when I have chronicled the events of three days in one post several times before? Well, yesterday was a really good day as far as riding, and horsy activities go. Today was different story. Not that today was necessarily bad, rather, it was what I refer to as sub-optimal In the spirit of maintaining a positive outlook, the good news is that I A) Kept Zigs between me and the ground, B) Zigs didn't seem off at all, and C) There is more progress on the job front. More on that as it develops.

For tonight's ride, it was my intention to continue to build upon yesterday's progress, which didn't go the way I planned. For one, I was very tense, which was making it nigh impossible for Zigs to relax, so it was quite the vicious circle. I found Zigs to be very heavy on the forehand tonight, and he kept drifting WAY to the outside on my circles. On top of that, I was transfixed on his head, because I'm telling you, if I do not look at it, it will disappear. It happened to my sister, once! Really! Well, ok, it wasn't actually her it was more like a friend of hers, and by friend I mean acquaintance, and by acquaintance I mean some guy she met at school, and, well, Ok, fine, that's not true.

So, to go down the list of problems and analyze them, I'll start with Zigs being heavy on the forehand. After talking to Saga's mom about it, and reviewing it in my head, I realize that I was not sitting up straight, which made it nigh on impossible for me to sit on Ziggy's butt and get him to step under himself and come through. I quite handily compounded this problem, by wondering why Zigs wasn't doing what I was wanting, when I should have been thinking about myself, because after all, Zigs' behaviour is a mirror of my own. So I don't forget, I'm pasting the advice Saga's mom gave me below:

"When you feel like things are going all to hell, stop thinking about your horse.

Think instead about where you are going.

10 m circle here, trot transition here, walk here, another 10 m circle, halt, change direction, figure 8, serpentine, ANYTHING to get you thinking aout something other than the horse. You'll start to relax and so will your horse, and before you know it, he'll be going beautifully"

As far as drifting to the outside goes, that one's easy. I didn't have my outside leg on him, and my outside rein didn't have enough contact. Really what tonight boils down to is that I was so nervous about the prospect of him being "off" (he was fine by the way, he actually flat out galloped over to his stall when I fed him after), that I pretty much just didn't ride. Of course, the usual work stress and being tired from this weekend were probably also contributing factors. I'll be trying again tomorrow, and hopefully, I'll actually be able to add pictures. That is, assuming that my computer finishes importing them . There's over 1000 pictures on the card in the camera. Unsurprisingly, it's taking a while to download them all. I should probably do a more in depth analysis of tonight's ride, but I'm literally falling asleep at my keybarod, and since I don't want to arrive to work tomorrow with a case of QWERTYitis, I'm going to go ahead and go to bed.

Problem Exists Between Saddle and Reins

Yesterday, for the first time in a week, I was able to ride. My intention was to work on sitting trot without stirrups, however, Ziggy seemed to have other plans. First, I couldn't get him to walk out at above a meander, and then, I couldn't get him to listen to my half halts. So, I gave up on my original plan, and just rode him around, not really working on anything outside of trying to get him to put his head down at the trot, and just sort of getting the wiggles out. To be fair to Zigs, he's essentially been on vacation for two weeks, and I was probably expecting a little much from him. I'll be riding him again tonight, and this time, I'm going to just work on getting transitions precisely when I want them. I realize this is a pretty short entry, but I really don't have too much to say about yesterday's ride. Hopefully tonight's will find me more chatty.

Riding Exactly the Same Way the Spanish Riding School Doesn't

Yeah... I'm not sure what to say about last night. Perhaps the best description is that last night's ride was everything that Monday's ride wasn't. I got home earlier than usual from work, and as I was debating on what to do for my ride, I had sort of decided on doing another ride around the neighborhood. Things probably would have worked out better if I'd actually done that. But, after getting home and taking a short nap, I got up and decided that I should do Dressage instead.

Should have gone with the trail ride. I was a total mess, Ziggy kept hollowing and rushing, and because my position was crap, I couldn't make him round up or go on the bit. The good news is that I was able to get canter exactly when I wanted it. So, yay. That's really all the coverage I feel last night's ride needs. Over the weekend a friend is coming over to help me out, so that should help things significantly.

Looks like it was my turn to colic.

Just a quick note about my ride yesterday on Sonata. My intention was to work on round circles and canter, but I was having pretty bad stomach pain, so I eventually decided just to walk her around. My brain really wasn't working at all, and unfortunately, I kept getting in everybody's way. Tonight, my overlords have granted me temporary reprieve from my conference call, so I will be taking a lesson tonight. Hopefully, it will go better than last Thursday did. Of course, I will report on it in full and exhaustive detail here later tonight. For now, I'm getting back to work. Here's to hoping I'm more awake/competent in my lesson tonight than I am right now.