A Simple Ride

We finally got another ride in. I went out last night to check out the bitey status of Stitch's back, which I was happy to see was zero. I kept my fingers crossed that it would be the same tonight - and it was!

The goal for this ride was to trot a long side, 20-ish meter circle, then down the next long side. I didn't want to have him break a sweat, as it's finally warmed up here so the horses get sweaty pretty easily, but it's also cool enough that I want to make sure he's dry before going out. 

Overall, I was quite happy with the ride. There was someone else riding in the arena who was being kind enough to give me my space, so I would have liked to have done a bit more down the long sides, but didn't want to interfere with her ride either. 

Stitch got to the point where he was starting to look for the shape of the circle. He's a bit sticky in the first part of the circle coming off the wall, but as we crossed the center line and his nose was pointed back to the track I was able to release my inside rein and he continued on the desired path. 

I ended the ride with a bit of gas in his tank still. That's been a challenge, usually he runs out pretty fast and then loses the forward. Not that we did much trot, it was lots of short bits, but that's usually all it takes.

The only thing I didn't like was that he walked forward while I was getting on. He hasn't done that yet, and I don't want it to become a habit. If he does it on the next ride then I'll hop off and try again until he stands still. I might go back to rewarding him with a cookie if he stands for the next little bit too.

He's going to be ridden on Thursday (pending vampire gelding attacks) and I'm interested to see if he'll still be forward after being ridden the day before. Hopefully yes!