It Started Out With a Bang

My drive out to the barn on Wednesday started off with a bang - literally. I was rear-ended when I stopped at a light and the girl behind me didn't. My SUV is hurt - the bottom part of my bumper will need to be replaced. So I'll have to spend some time dealing with this over the next couple of days. Blargh.

Poor car. 

Thankfully the ponies were awesome.

I arrived at the barn later than I had hoped to and ended up having to ride during a jump lesson. There was only one person in it so it wasn't too bad.

Cisco was very chill, but was trying very hard for me. Except for the whole going forward thing. When I ride him I have one of two horses under me - if we are alone in the arena, I have a forward, pretty reactive to my leg, but tense horse. If there are other horses in there, I have a super chill, behind my leg horse. This horse is exhausting to ride. Mr. Tappy spends lots of time making his presence known.

I had dropped the bit down a hole to see if he was more comfortable with it a bit lower in his mouth. Phantom hates a high bit, so I thought I'd see if Cisco was the same. I don't know if it made a difference or not, but he definitely didn't dislike it. I have a lesson on Thursday so I'll see if she makes a comment about the bulging cheekpieces.

7.9 for canter regularity! I haven't broken my horse's canter yet!

Our right lead canter was again much better with flexion to the inside around most of the turns. And then I had some lovely soft right bend at a trot on a longer rein. I was hoping to do more canter, but the next jump lesson was ramping up again and there wasn't going to be a lot of space so I decided to end after his nice trot work.

Phantom was slightly less silly than the day before. To the right she was able to give me some soft trot work, but she's been a bit stiff to the left so she wasn't reaching down or giving me flexion that direction. I did a lot of leg-yields and pushing her out around turns, and it got a bit better. Counter-canter seemed to help her left lead - at least until she started to get silly again. Then we lost everything and could barely trot at a decent pace after the canter.

Not where I like to see it, though I definitely don't live by this score. 

Her symmetry score on the Equisense was terrible. She didn't feel bad though, so I think it's because we really didn't spend too much time on a straight line at a trot without me moving her laterally in some way or another. Not that I'm convinced this score means much regarding lameness - the rides where I have the worst scores are generally ones where I'm doing more lateral work.