Easy Week :)

Ahhh.... this week was actually quite nice! Although I will still manage to work on 23 or 24 animals, so... maybe not an easy week, but a nice week. I was supposed to go to Big Bear on Monday to work on 6 but they cancelled so my day suddenly opened up. I decided to be good and work on case reports instead of ride. It was tough! I did get both horses adjusted and acupunctured though. I may have gotten some good stuff done with Dan in the right rib cage. Hopefully! So that was nice. 

Then Tuesday was my dressage lesson. We had a good ride. We made some good progress. I need to get a little tougher about getting the canter from the walk and then getting the canter, trot, canter transitions across the diagonal. He can do it, I just need to be better about creating a better balance for him and being firm in what he gives me. I also talked to Cindy about the canter aids and how I feel like I"m messing him up when I try to use my outside leg. She said that really, I am using my outside leg, but that perhaps I don't need to focus on it so much. Especially tracking to the left when my right leg is so far back anyways. :) So.. that's a bit of a relief. I didn't want to mess him up for the tempi's later in life but I also don't want to mess him up now.  So.. for now at least, I'm going back to just asking with the inside leg, getting the correct lead, and hoping that I'm keeping my outside leg back by default. We ended up getting some really really lovely left lead canter but he was super fussy on the right lead... I couldn't quite get him to bend around my right leg and not hang on the right rein. Sigh.. but a work in progress.

So then Thursday (today) I had a jump lesson with Beth. She was late so Dan and I went for a hack first. We walked down the bank and over the bigger ditch while we were out and about. Someone had set up a low vertical a few strides out from the bank, so we had to jump it and then trot up the bank and then come down the bank and jump it. He wasn't phased. :) 

Our jump lesson was pretty good. It's frustrating because I swear I can't manage to get it right. I fix one thing and another thing falls apart. Or I'm all opposite-y. Sigh.. And granted, he wasn't really in front of my leg today in the beginning, so that made it worse. I thought he was... he responded on the rail when I closed my leg, but right before the fences, not so much. So we had some icky fences. Beth suggested bigger spurs because it was throwing my position off having to work so hard to get a reaction. And...especially because I've been trying to avoid using my heel and spur and turning my toes in.... it was really hard to have to turn my heel in and dig into him to get a reaction. So it was throwing my lower leg back. Sigh... BUT... I was doing MUCH better with my hands and keeping them low and on his neck. And my position was better with the 3 point to the fence. We were drifting right badly today and I did manage mostly fix that was right leg and a little bit of hands left. So not a complete bummer, but just frustrating. We did have some nice fences and I figured out how to ride him forward through the turns, then keep my leg on but not keep egging him on, just holding the forward to the fence. And we did some hard turns too which really made it tough to keep the momentum and forward through the tough turns. And I made some good choices, so... it was a good day. :) 

After my lesson it was warm and Dan was so dirty, so I gave him a bath. Then I rode Fleck on a trail ride with Beth and Mighty and the 2 OTTB's to babysit, so Dan had to sit on the trailer for an hour and a half. But at least that kept him from rolling and let him dry. He was so clean and pretty! I turned him out when we got home for an hour or two and then Freddie showed up to do their feet. So he was in the cross ties for that and then in his stall while we trimmed Fleck. So then I fed them and decided to clip Fleck since he was so fuzzy. I got to use my big clippers YAY and they worked great! Danny was hilarious though.. he kept sticking his head over Fleck's back and trying to mess with the clippers. Fine goofy horse... I'll clip you too then! So I put him in the cross ties when I was done with Fleck and did him too. I swear he wanted me to. He stood pretty well for it too, though he's ticklish at his poll and withers. But what a good boy. And what a weirdo. :)