Getting Somewhere

I've been managing to get three rides in a week for the most part (although might change this week because it's winter tomorrow). Stitch has been so good to ride, which makes up for the twit he's been in the crossties. I think that he picks up on routines far faster than I realize.

Under saddle Stitch has figured out inside leg to outside hand, but is still in the phase where it's not ingrained and if there is something else interesting to look at then he ignores the leg. We're also at the point where if I ride better he goes better (duh), especially when it comes to getting bend. I realized on today's ride that he does much better in the corners if I keep my hands together in front of me and just use my leg to ask for the bend. 

Baby's first haircut! He stood like a rock for almost the whole clip. He just a bit fussy when the horse that was crosstied next to him left, at which point I only had to finish up by his head.

He's been doing well with the baby leg yields towards the track. Next I'll start asking him to move towards the inside of the ring instead of falling towards the wall.

Stitch's balance is still not perfect at the trot. He loses his balance when he gets a bit too forward, which happens a lot but I'm not complaining since it took him a while to get there in the beginning. Anything that involves steering has to be slowed down or we can't quite keep our lines.

Most of my rides on Stitch have been by ourselves. Great in some ways, not so good for life experience. I've had a couple of rides over the last couple of weeks that have been with other riders (usually just one) and it's been good for him, although they haven't been the best rides. He's just a little too looky at everyone to be able to carry us forward. 

Today's ride was the first time that he tried to stretch a bit forward and down into the contact at trot. We were doing some whoa's and go's on a 3 loop serpentine, coming back to almost walk on the center line. He gave a little feel of trying to reach down, but then we also lost our steering. So I tried it one more time, staying on the track. After one lap with a few almost walk transitions I put my hands forward a little bit, he stayed with me, so I took a leap of faith and fed the reins out a little bit more. I didn't want to let them get too long and dump him on his face, but I had to make sure I gave him a chance to respond. And he did! He dropped his nose and pushed it out. Super happy with that!

Video from last Friday's ride. The goal was to be able to do transitions on the serpentine and maintain our line of travel.

We're still working on building up fitness slowly. We are only at 6 x 2 minute trot intervals. I've been seeing good signs that the NQR behind issue is getting better. He is resting his right hind far less than he was, and the tight muscle group over his croup has gotten much softer. He was a little stiffer starting off on today's ride than he has been, it took about a lap to lose the wonky feeling, but it has been much better the last couple of weeks. So I'm hoping we are on the right track and plan to continue doing what we are doing. I'm hoping to start cantering him around Christmas, but the cold weather over the next couple of weeks might put a damper on that. Although the arena is heated, he has to go back outside afterwards, and I don't want to get him too warm before sending him out into -20c (yes, it's going to feel like that overnight already).

It feels like we are finally getting somewhere!

Work Smarter

It's official.

My horse is too big for me.

On Friday night, I had to let my stirrup down a hole to get on from the mounting block after I decided that only getting half of my big toe in the stirrup wasn't going to do the job. One hole longer and it was easy.

Gotta look up at his his back now. Sticked him at a solid 15.3hh last night.

Now, at some point, I'm hoping to ride a hole longer for flat work. But riding my trampoline of a baby horse is not yet conducive to staying balanced with longer stirrups. So I either get a taller mounting block built or Stitch learns to wait a few more seconds at the block until I get my stirrup back to the right length.

Once I got on, I had a pretty good ride with some breakthrough moments.

At a walk, he's actually feeling quite broke. I mean, we've spent a lot of time there this year, so there's a reason for that. He bends easily, accepts contact, and when I picked up my reins I realized that he almost feels like I could ask anything of him.

And then we trot, and it's like "oh, right".

Unfortunately, having things figured out at a walk does not mean that it works the same way at a trot. Especially in a young horse. 

I'm really happy with this walk frame.

One thing that I've really been working on at the walk is being able to stay bent in the direction of travel and move away from the inside leg. All summer the left side was the tricky side, but it seems to have swapped. On this ride he gave me multiple moments to the left where, when I actually remembered to use my inside leg, he made an adjustment and moved out on the circle or turn. 

To the right - not so much. 

Good news is I ride better to the right, and although that is the leg that I injured earlier this year it feels pretty good in the saddle, so I don't think it's going to be an ongoing issue. 

The main reason that we were having problems is because he's been diving to the inside towards the gate down the long side, and when we get to the corner he's counter bent with his right shoulder dropped in. We schooled stopping in the corners, and that helped a bit, but I need to start throwing a circle in at B to see if that helps to reset his shoulders before we head into the short end. This week we're going to move up to 1min30sec trots, so there will be a bit more time to start adding some more circles and see if we cnn tidy that up.

It's going to be a little bit of a "work smarter not harder" plan for the rides for a while. 

Which might also apply to just getting into the saddle. 

Or I could sell him and get a pony...

Lucky for him he's the right colour. 

I guess I'll figure out how to jump higher.