Friday Night Barn Night (part 1)

I am one of those wild and crazy single girls who is happy to spend my Friday nights out at the barn. I often have the place to myself (not that I don't have the barn most other nights to myself, but Friday is a pretty sure bet).

I was hoping to ride both ponies on Friday night as I had gotten out of work a bit early. Phantom was up first.

I moved her trot intervals up from 2 minutes to 3 minutes. I know - she's working so hard. I starting her back on a bit of a rehab type program, after she had heavey type issues last fall, most of 4 months off, and then tied up at the beginning of January. She's lost a lot of strength, so I just want to take everything slow.

She's been starting off a bit uneven, I think on the left front. Not noticeable to anyone watching, but just a little more up on that shoulder on left turns. She seems to work out of it, so I have been trying to ride her through it without overly stressing about it. On this day, she didn't start this way. She felt nice and even at our first trot.

And interestingly, this was supported by the data from the Equisense.

Friday's ride - overall symmetry of 7.4. The high mark was 8.5.

Previous Sunday ride. Overall symmetry 6.9.

I found this quite interesting. She felt more even to me, and the data supports that. 

However, a different problem showed up. She was really stiff laterally on the left rein. Which is totally opposite to how she normally carries herself. Usually the left is her hollow side, and her shoulders bulge to the right. On this day, as we were trotting up the long side on a light contact at the beginning of the ride, her body was curved to the right. Huh.

There was a load of new sand for the arena footing piled up that had to be investigated.

So a big chunk of this ride was some gentle bending and softening to the left, and lots of leg yields. It got a bit better, but I don't feel like she ever really softened. 

The short bit of canter that we did felt horrible. Short, choppy, not forward, tight back, blegh. So I did another 30m circle each way in 2 point and had her roll along a bit more. Note to self - I really need to do more 2 point. 

Unfortunately, by the time I was finished riding Phantom, I was too cold to ride Cisco. He still got some exercise, which I will show tomorrow.

If anyone is interested, here is the other data from the Equisense. Get used to seeing lots of it.