Ride #2 of the New Year

Last Thursday, which was the beautiful day that I washed both horses tails, I also managed to ride both horses. Pretty easy rides for both, partly because they are just getting started back, but mostly because I'm totally out of shape for riding. And because I wanted to be able to walk the next day at work after riding two days in a row.

Phantom's ride was very easy - only the second ride at the first step of the interval training program I'm doing with her. So it was mostly walking with a small amount of trot sets thrown in. She would have been happy to do way more - she kept trying to speed off every time we went across a diagonal. But nope - I'm sticking to my plan. 

She felt a wee bit off on our first trot to the left, hopefully just because she still had a bit of fill in that right front. I didn't feel anything after that first trot, though her symmetry score on the Equisense was pretty low. Not sure if it was because we didn't really trot all that much so it was a bit of a false reading, or if it's because she's actually not overly sound. Something to keep in the back of my mind.

A little hard to see in pictures, but there is a definite green tinge to the bottom half of Cisco's face. Either he's getting ready for St. Patrick's day really early, or he's made a hole in the slow feeder net and is sticking his face into the round bale.

Next, I tacked up Cisco. He had been in for a bit after getting his tail washed and dried, so he was pretty mellow. That didn't seem to carry over when we got into the arena. He was on alert, though not high-alert. Groundwork usually helps to tune him in, so I did some of that before hopping on.

He stood nicely for me to get on, but once I was on wouldn't stand still. This seems to be hit or miss (mostly miss) depending on how up he is. I foresee a couple of days of just repeating getting on and standing in the near future.

He was definitely more up than the previous ride, but by no means crazy.

That yellowy/browny tinge above and below the noseband is actually a green tinge in person. 

I decided to bite the bullet and try for the right lead canter. My goal for the next short period with Cisco is to make sure that I canter every ride.

We didn't get the right lead. Well, we did, but it probably took at least 10 attempts.

Last summer I had a lesson and the focus was getting the canter quicker and a trick to get the right lead. Mr. Smarty Pants quickly figured that exercise out, and every time I would do a circle and re-approach the track he would anticipate that I was going to ask for a canter so he got super antsy at the trot. So I'm trying to not use that exercise and trying to change up where I ask for the canter.

He was actually pretty good about not doing the up-and-down trot in between the canter attempts. Eventually, we got the right lead, though we only kept it for about halfway around the arena, with suspect steering.

He got lots of praise, and we went back to some more trot work. He was anticipating, but not obnoxiously, and he stepped quietly into a right lead canter. I didn't ask for it, but decided to stick with it and not dash his hopes that he was doing the right thing. It was a nice canter about a lap and a half around the arena. Good boy.

Tired pony post-ride.

We did a bit more trot, and what was this? Was he trying to reach down and forward? He was probably rooting down, but I'll take it.

I was happy with ride #2 of the year. It feels like he's trying to figure out where to put his head and I'm happy that he's figuring out that he can go forward and down with it. Now we just need to get some consistent relaxation!