On Friday I got done early with my responsibilities, and headed straight home in the midst of a superb day - sunny, in the sixties with no wind. The arena was toasty. Val and I started work right away - grooming and tacking up while he was ground tied. There were a couple of efforts to walk off, and some impatience, (head bobbing + lip flapping), which I patiently corrected, then returned to my grooming tasks. After a big sigh, Val stood still for the remainder of our preparations. He has really made progress with ground tying, and I believe that the benefits of this work also show up under saddle.
Just as I finished tacking Val up, my neighbor cranked up some sort of jack hammer-ish, super loud tool right next door to the arena. Oh goody... It didn't impact the ride at all though, which made me very happy.
We moved right into our trot work, which lasted for over an hour, with a couple of walk breaks thrown in. We alternated posting and two point, focusing on half halts and transitions. Nothing new, but we are refining his movement and my aiding, little by little.
After the ride I hung all my tack out on the arena gate and cleaned it - a super thorough job. I took it apart, saddle soaped and oiled everything.
Val helped too. He pulled the stirrups down, grabbed pieces that I wasn't working on and dropped them in the sand, and groomed me. I finally had to banish him to the far corner of the arena...
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Today there was a milestone. Our first (intentional) sitting trot. Val's coming on to the bit, and my confidence in taking up more contact presented me with a lovely lifted back as I sat the first few strides of a trot transition, so I kept it up. It felt great, and Val snorted and motored on pushing from his hind end. This is the first time I've sat the trot where it didn't feel like I was unnecessarily bouncing around on his back, and it didn't take tons of effort to sit in my horse, not on him. Yay - so dressagey!
Next I dropped my stirrups for some posting practice, which followed the sitting trot work quite nicely. To finish up we worked on turns on the forehand. The right handed ones were very sticky - lots of resistance from Val. After the ride I remembered that I had rotated my leathers post cleaning the other day, but neglected to check for stretching. Sure enough, my left leather, formerly right, had stretched and needed to be raised, so I was likely more uneven than usual.
All in all a very satisfying ride. :)
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I'm thinking if horses could smoke, or suck their thumbs... or bite their nails, these two would be prime candidates. So orally fixated...
It looks absolutely beautiful where you are. NEVER fails that a perfect moment gets ruined by neighbors--in my case it's usually some sort of horrendous farm equipment and/or screaming kids/dogs playing soccer. Val is such a sweetheart, helping you out with all that pesky cleaning...! :)
ReplyDeleteAhaha! That picture of Val being banished is absolutely perfect.
ReplyDeleteYour horses are very playful - too cute. And hooray for sitting trot! I'm on that mission too.
Yay for the fun riding you're doing! I had to laugh about the lip flapping. I LOVE it when Keil Bay does that. I stop and watch and laugh and try to get him to do MORE of it. He's the only one here who does it and even he doesn't do it much, so it's a rare treat when it happens. :)
ReplyDeleteThat sitting trot sounded so nice and like he was really engaging properly! YEA!!! I LOVE mouthy geldings, I find it SO endearing :)
ReplyDeleteI love your photos -- they really show Val's personality and also of the horse chewing on the hose. Your ride sounds wonderful! Don't you just love sitting their trot when they lift their back? (and hate it when they don't).
ReplyDeleteLove the new header!
ReplyDeleteI think sitting trot should feel easy. To me, that means that you are doing it right!
Guess blogger ate my other comment. Glad to hear that you and Val are having such great rides. The sitting trot sounds awesome.
ReplyDeleteLove the pictures of Mr. Personality. Don't you just love it when they "help!" The other pony is awfully cute and I can see he likes to help too. You should have almost no work to do around there with your enthusiastic employees.
...drop the stirrups for posting practice? NEVER thought of that and must mean I am posting ALL wrong. (I just took a deep breath) ... and have sworn to do this. I am new to english (I'm a western gal) and most of my lessons thus far have been ground work.
ReplyDeleteLooks like there is a lot of "fun" ahead for me.
The weather looks great where you live!
Awww...Val has that same "dejected" look Gabe gets when I have to banish him for being too helpful too!
ReplyDeletePosting without stirrups...you are disciplined! I hate it and do it grudgingly when I convince myself it's absolutely necessary. :)
Love the picture of Val being banished, too cute!
ReplyDeleteSitting the trot is sooooo much easier when you have a nice place to sit. Sounds like it was a truly great ride. :)