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!
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