Tuesdays with Cindy

Today was a good day. We had a good lesson with Cindy.  And we got to canter! Although I think we forgot how. Both of us. ;)

So.... Freddie came Monday evening and did Dan's feet how Dr. Gillis wanted. His front feet are evened out, with shorter toes and the shoes pulled back a hair. The back feet now have wedge pads to help raise up his heels like Dr. Gillis wanted and Freddie said it will help his stifles too, which seemed to be bothering him based on the video. His feet look good but it's funny seeing him in high heels behind. And then Freddie mentioned that perhaps bell boots would be helpful. Sigh.... I'll try. :)

So we stopped at Bar G on our way to our lesson and got a pair of bellboots. And man... I'm not sure if it's the clip job or the new shoes or the previcox, but Danny has been in a mood lately!! He's almost hangry. ;) When I tied him to the trailer to tack up he kept pawing and then he was angrily ripping hay from the hay net. And he's not usually so.... adamant! And it was awfully crisp out, so... I was a little worried about how our ride was going to go. :) I did manage to get there early enough to do a little hack and warm up so that we got our 20 minutes of walking in before we started trotting. And he held it together! But it was a bit animated. :)

We started our lesson and Claire was in there riding Quigley. Yeah... two rowdy youngsters. Dan held it together until the garage door got rolled up and then he leapt up and almost smacked me in the face. But then he settled in and we had a nice ride.

Cindy focused on getting him in front of my leg and having me stop kicking every stride. I'm not even kicking so much, but firing the backs of my calves. Cindy demonstrated and said that I was rotating my knee out and toes out and squeezing. Instead I need to almost grip with my upper calf in front of and just below my knee... like I'm posting the trot stirrup-;ess. Note to self... DO THAT!! Do that A lot! I almost have to kick my leg a little in front of me.. (though not really). I also need to stand on the outside of my stirrup since i roll in because of my arches. But yep... I'm soooooo glad that she pointed that out. Because she's right... I do kick every stride. And I don't mean to, but I do. And it's creating imbalance and Dan is tuning me out. BUT... when I focused on posting the trot without stirrups, it wasn't that hard and it helped me figure out which muscles to use. Aha!!! Now I can fix it.

Then we went to the canter. The left side wasn't too bad but the right side feels odd with the new shoes. He just felt very downhill and like his hiney was up in the air. I'm sure I will get used to it though. And I'm sure it's not that he is downhill. Our transitions were terrible, but... he cantered. And I was shutting him down. I was blocking the forward momentum by not letting my hip swing forward enough and bringing it back to soon. So once I started swinging forward and holding the forward, the canter got better!

So yep.. Fun ride!

We both clean up nice!

Today was a rainy icky day. The boys stayed inside all day because of the weather. I let them graze a little bit in the morning while I cleaned stalls. And Dan was a little bit wet already so I decided to give him a bath! I got him all squeaky clean and then show sheened him all over and then put a cooler on him. Then I went inside and worked on reports and invoices. 

Luckily I finished with enough time to go clip him before dinner with Mike's family. I LOVE the big clippers!! Never again! I was able to get him fully body clipped in less than 2 hours. And yes, I had to use the smaller clippers to smooth out lines and do specific areas. He was actually really good for most of it. And I even adjusted him first so he had already been standing in the cross ties for almost an hour. He was good for the right side of his neck, even with the big clippers. But as soon as I went to do the left side of his neck, he freaked out!! Weirdo. I had to twitch his ear to do the left side and it still looks terrible. I'll smooth it out at some point. 

We also took pictures of his big ol' ribbon from the Gala. :) 

Dressage and Hack Day

Warm up Hack with Kelli

Dressage

Cool down Hack with Christy and Stephanie

Happy Birthday to me!!!! #legallycantering

Wheeeeeeeeeeeee


Ahhhhhhhhhh

So... great news!!! Danny and I headed to Aiken this morning for his recheck on his butt. It looks AWESOME!! It is healing super well. He's laying down organized tight fibers. Some of his scar tissue is even better and resolved. Although he did have one scar fiber in the middle of his accessory gluteal but it's small and doesn't seem to bother him. Dr. Gillis was impressed with him. :) And... WE GET TO CANTER!!!!

Well, technically... she wants his shoe's changed a bit first. She said that the discrepancy between both front feet is not good and needs to be fixed before I can canter. So.... I texted Freddie. Funny enough, turns out he was in Aiken today but beat me home by about 2 hours so...  he's coming Monday. BUT... I couldn't help it. I figured that we would be fine to have a canter and we were at Hitchcock Woods.. how could we not?!? So we did. :)

He was super. We did our 20 minutes of walking. Then we did two 5 minute trot sets. Then we did our canter. She said 5 minutes... which I was surprised about. I was expecting 2 minute canters. But yahoo! Danny said that 5 minutes starting out was a bit tough after all that time off so we did about 3.5 or 4 minutes and then took a few minute breather and finished with our last 1.5 minutes. Plus the footing there is a bit deep in spots so he was working hard. And then we did another two 5 minute trot sets.

We had a blast!!! We got a little lost but found our way again. They had burned a bunch of the area so there was even little smoke fires still going. But Dan was super. :)

Ahhhhh....we both feel better. Now to find time to bathe and clip the furry beast. :) It's getting a bit warm for canter work. :)

Birthday Ride

Lesson with Cindy

Sneaking another one in!

So today was the warmest day of the year, by Far!! And I was stuck inside for most of it learning. :) It was a good thing... I guess. ;) 

I did manage to get home right at 4:30 and Mike was sweet and told me to go ride. So I got to sneak one in. It was 5:30 before I got on and headed out to ride, and the sun was setting. So I finished my ride in the dark but at least it wasn't freezing!!!

He was a good boy even with ALL the deer. But we just did our trots in the open fields. I wasn't in the mood to do dressage :) 

Sunshine!!!

Yay!!! I did work all day yesterday and didn't get home til way past time to ride, but today... Today I got to enjoy the sunshine!!! Whooo hooo!!!


It was a beautiful day today. I met Kelli and we rode in the fields and did our trot sets. It was fun. :) Then I was even able to sneak in a ride on Dan before my birthday dinner date with Mike at the Optimist!!

Snow Ride

I was starting to get a little frustrated! Okay, I was VERY frustrated... This darn weather. I couldn't work yesterday, couldn't run errands, couldn't ride... and then today, I was supposed to take Dan to Dr. Brown to make sure that he was healing well and see if he could figure out that weird hitchy thing I keep feeling on occasion. And the roads were still icy. Ugh... So yesterday I basically pouted and only accomplished a few things. But today was better. I was able to get a bunch accomplished. I went to the tag office and got everything squared away. Finally. Then I got shavings and cat food and dog food. And totally forgot to get another heated water trough. Ugh. Whoops. Oh well, I'll get one tomorrow. Then I also went to the bank. And cleaned up a little bit at the house and took some of the trash to the curb. And while I was out, the roads weren't bad. So I got all excited that I could ride. 

Luckily I took the long way home to check the roads before I got on them with the trailer. Good thing because they were ICY!!! Of course, the only way out with the trailer and even if I went the super long way.. it was a huge long chunk of ice. Sigh.... Maybe it would have been fine, but it didn't seem like a smart move to risk it. 


So after I finished pouting a bit, I rode at home. It wasn't super... but it was a ride. :) 

Danny was a bit better than in my lesson with Claire but still not great. He fought me a good bit and his tongue was flailing around some. Sigh... But we did get some fairly decent work in and we got our 20 minutes of trot accomplished. And I feel better. :) 

Saturday is supposed to be pretty nice. I hope so!! Because I can't ride tomorrow and Sunday I'm at CE all day... (although I'm secretly hoping it ends early).