Phantom Ride - With Pixio Video!

My repaired Pixio robot arrived Thursday afternoon! I had to pay a customs fee for it even though it was a warranty repair which should be exempt from duties. I can make a claim for it though to get my $35 back. Should be easy since it said right on the document that it was a warranty repair with no value!

I picked it up on my way out to the barn so I wasn't sure if it was going to be charged or if it was my original one with the correct camera drivers installed. Everything seemed to be good, and the arena cleared out by the time I was ready to ride, so I figured I might as well put it to the test.

I set it up in the center of the arena to test that the 360 was now working. Since I now know where my beacons need to be placed everything paired up right away and I walked a full circle around the tripod - and the camera followed me! Yay!

She always looks right as I'm about to get on. Every single time.

It wasn't perfect. There are seemingly a couple of bogey spots in the arena where it likes to momentarily lose me. For the most part I didn't realize it until after the ride and I reviewed the footage. I'm not sure why, but it was mostly in the same spots when going the same direction that the robot wandered. Still, most of the footage was viewable. I'll just continue to play with the placement of everything and see if I can get different results.

I ended up videoing my ride on Phantom. It's not a very exciting ride - we're currently doing five 2 minute trot sets with 2 minutes of walking in between. But it was a good opportunity to figure out the Pixio.

As you can see, Phantom's natural way of going is very level. She is a stock horse - APHA, with her dam side all being TB. She is not built to do high level dressage (neither am I). Lifting her sternum is hard for her.

Born for western pleasure.

She has a hard time until she gets fit and stronger. Thus, in the beginning, I don't worry about it too much. I'm happy if she voluntarily gives me moments and I keep them short and sweet. At 16 years of age, she knows her job - she just needs to be physically capable of doing it. And I have to ride her properly.

Old lady warmup trot

She's been starting off a little shuffly the last few rides. I try to ignore it for the first trot set. She seems to work it out by the end of that trot and is good to go for the next trot.

A little bit better

Her tendency if I push too much when she's not strong is to want to curl and get behind the bit. I'd much rather she keep her nose out a little - it took years to get her out of the curling habit she came with.

My watch signaled the next trot set to start while I was hanging up my jacket. I wasn't ready yet!

With her asthma, we spend quite a bit of time at this point on a loose rein during the trots. It's hard to work when you can't breathe, so getting some fitness is a bit more of a priority to me than schooling.

We'll just continue to dabble along slowly. She's not in a rush.

(I'm posting this just as I am leaving for work - if the videos aren't working (as appears to happening) I will fix it when I get home. Check back this weekend!)