Ride #29

I didn't ride all week, due to feeling crappy for a couple of days followed by snow/freezing temperatures. Stitch was bundled up again in his warm jammies for a couple of days, but will hopefully be able to be nekkid on Monday or Tuesday. We're not out of the woods for snow - my birthday is early in April and we always have snow after my birthday, but that should be the last of the stupid cold for the season. Fingers crossed.

When I went out on Wednesday night to bring him in and put his snowsuit on, he was happily playing bitey face with his BFF out in the field, which was followed by galloping off with bucks and farts, then the stare into the distance with his tail up in the air and the dragon snort. 

I thought he might be a twit to bring in, but he surprised me and walked very calmly next to me. We went straight into the arena as it was empty and he was given a chance to get the last of his sillies out before I put him in the crossties. He is playing much more in the arena when given the chance, lots of bucks and farts and diving into a change of direction last minute. 

Which he did none of on Friday night when I brought him in. I was planning to ride on Saturday and didn't want to die, so he got let loose on Friday, but it only took a couple of minutes to get the little bit of sass out of him. 

And then Saturday came, and it was cold, and I had family dinner plans, and I didn't want to feel chilled all evening, so I didn't get out to the barn. Which meant that on Sunday, when I did ride, I wasn't too sure what I was going to get.

The sass was definitely in there. Stitch was a little looky at a couple of corners that to me didn't seem to have changed when we walked in the beginning - by which I mean he took a good look at them but kept walking past them. But that was about the extent of it. 

For this ride, he was forward at the trot right off the bat. He wasn't, however, feeling very balanced. So I actually slowed him down a bit in order to gain some balance. For the most part he was thinking forward though, not asking to slow down so much, mostly when we had steering issues.

Our 20m circles were terrible - a week off did nothing initially for our steering. So it's the perfect time to try a 3 loop serpentine, right?

The first go ended up being a figure 8 - the two circles kind. I tried to turn and when we ended up heading towards E I knew I couldn't save it for the serpentine. So we did a couple of figure 8's first, which worked out quite nicely. Stitch was listening and waiting for my input as to where we were going. I also changed how I asked him to turn, using an indirect rein instead of an open rein - and what do you know, he bent nicely and stayed much better on the desired path.

On the next serpentine attempt, I figured that I would have to think about turning much earlier to make it happen. Again, I kept my hands close together and used an indirect rein before turning, and ended up having some lovely turns. Guess it's time to start riding him like he's a big boy now!

Stitch also gave me a lovely feeling as we started the serpentine of balancing the trot coming out of the corner at C. He responds well to me closing my thighs to slow down, but it's been more slam on the brakes kind of slowing down. This time, I put my lower leg on at the same time, and he responded by rebalancing himself and still going forward, and it set us up for a great turn off of the wall. 

So, yeah, it looks like I have to remember how to ride properly again!

Adjusting the balance in the trot will be our goal for the next few rides. By no means am I asking for anything crazy - no collection here - just to be able to rebalance before turns and transitions. Exercises like the serpentines will help with this quite a bit, I just have to remember to ask for it!