Riding in the Dark
Well... it was a long day. I adjusted 10 horses, ate lunch at 4 pm, and then drove home from Newnan. I was rerouted around traffic, so I made it home at 5:15. I decided to man up and go ride. It was chilly but not terrible and I have appropriate clothes. Plus it was going to rain all weekend so I knew I wouldn't get to ride. But I'm not going to lie. The couch was sounding tempting. But I'm so glad I went (Especially because Friday it was cold AND raining... and I was just as late getting home Friday). So anyways, I did it. We got there just as the sun was dropping under the trees, so... we went for a quick warm up hack in the dark. IT WAS SO COOL!!! It's just so surreal... riding in the dark. It was wild. You can sort of see where you are going and you can hear the hoof beats but you can't quite see well enough and you feel like you're gliding a little bit. It was fun. I was giggling! I was tempted to stay out there but after a bit it got too dark and I was afraid we would run into a jump. :) So we headed to the arena.
Ha ha.. Dan's face when I turned the lights on. He was like... "Oh crap.. I thought we were done!". But he was a good sport. It was funny because I had to turn my phone flashlight on to see where the light switch was and when it came on, Dan jumped. And was like.. "Oh, okay... jeeze mom". What a good sport. We did some dressage work and... man.. I don't know WHAT I'm doing wrong but I have destroyed our left lead canter. We're almost consistently getting it as far as picking it up, but I feel like I'm blocking him somehow and he can't maintain it. Sigh... It was similar as in my lesson, although in my lesson, it more felt like he couldn't hold it because I was shifting to the correct position and he just didn't believe me, and then he couldn't hold it because he wasn't strong enough. But here, it felt like I was shutting him down. Like he wants to go up and down instead of forward. Sigh... I have no idea... and it's driving me bananas. We did get some pretty nice canter to walks. And some pretty nice walk to canters on a circle. We also tried some figure 8 canters with simple changes. It was harder but we did it. But the simple change on the straight line is MUCH harder. And we managed to hold the counter canter a time or too, but not every time. Not even most of the time. But.. we did manage it. And it's maybe getting more accurate. Ugh... But the good news is, that while I've broken our canter... our trot feels AMAZING!! Like boingy and sproingy and fancy!! We did the shoulder in to travers and it was actually pretty dang nice. At least as far as I could tell. So... we'll see how things go. I'm debating finding an equicube and using it for a few weeks. Of course the weather is making it difficult to make any progress. And work.
Ha ha.. Dan's face when I turned the lights on. He was like... "Oh crap.. I thought we were done!". But he was a good sport. It was funny because I had to turn my phone flashlight on to see where the light switch was and when it came on, Dan jumped. And was like.. "Oh, okay... jeeze mom". What a good sport. We did some dressage work and... man.. I don't know WHAT I'm doing wrong but I have destroyed our left lead canter. We're almost consistently getting it as far as picking it up, but I feel like I'm blocking him somehow and he can't maintain it. Sigh... It was similar as in my lesson, although in my lesson, it more felt like he couldn't hold it because I was shifting to the correct position and he just didn't believe me, and then he couldn't hold it because he wasn't strong enough. But here, it felt like I was shutting him down. Like he wants to go up and down instead of forward. Sigh... I have no idea... and it's driving me bananas. We did get some pretty nice canter to walks. And some pretty nice walk to canters on a circle. We also tried some figure 8 canters with simple changes. It was harder but we did it. But the simple change on the straight line is MUCH harder. And we managed to hold the counter canter a time or too, but not every time. Not even most of the time. But.. we did manage it. And it's maybe getting more accurate. Ugh... But the good news is, that while I've broken our canter... our trot feels AMAZING!! Like boingy and sproingy and fancy!! We did the shoulder in to travers and it was actually pretty dang nice. At least as far as I could tell. So... we'll see how things go. I'm debating finding an equicube and using it for a few weeks. Of course the weather is making it difficult to make any progress. And work. 
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