Much better

 Poor Daniel! He's been ridden so many days in a row this week! I rode Thursday last week, plus both Saturday and Sunday. And then Monday was a light day so I rode... my usual Tuesday ride... then today I had a barn cancel so I had the whole morning free, so off we went. :) We met Kelli and Marvin at Ashland. I would have preferred to ride at home I think, or get a longer hack, but... it's all good. Because of working this afternoon I had to limit my riding time, but.. hey, it beats not getting to ride at all! Especially since tomorrow we may get rained out. 

I tried putting him in the bit Kelli's been letting me use but the appropriate sized one. Apparently that one is way too big for him. I did drop it a hole on each side since it was shorter. We started out and he was good at the walk. We even got some pillar 3 under saddle both ways. Yay! We picked up the trot and focused on haunches right at the trot, even tracking left. Which was hard... and he stuck his tongue out. Sigh...really Dan?!? Ugh. So I got off and raised the bit up a hole on each side. Which made me think it was in his molars, but... every time I drop it.. out comes his tongue! So... fine dude! Your choice. So we carried on and after that.. no tongue. But also, no chomping or anything that would indicate stress. And he was sound, so... ??? Ugh! 

Anyways... we practiced our trotting with the haunches right and it was much better today. He was able to sit and rock back more and felt more uphill and more slow in his rhythm but not lazy. Kelli said it looked much better too. It's hard going left though... to ride haunches right. So, Kelli helped and we decided that perhaps I can ride haunches right with my seat, not as much leg aids, just seat aids... and then ask for the slight counter flexion until he feels good.. then allow the correct flexion as long as he can hold it and stay correct. Which, isn't long, but.. that's okay. Progress. I laughed and said that this was helpful because I was definitely working on not putting my right leg into his stifle.. but perhaps now it would be my left leg. But she reminded me.. "Use your seat then!". Duh. :) 

So, yeah.. it was a good ride. Short. Quite short. Especially because I watched Kelli and Marvin for a few minutes to help them out. And then, I was so tempted to do more, but... I also wanted a hack and was running out of time. And Kelli reminded me to not get greedy. I told her that I wanted to canter to see if the haunches in fixed the canter too and she said NO! Don't get greedy. Enjoy this and don't push for more and ruin it. Sigh.. she's right, but... it's hard. 

We did take a quick hack to the lake and let the boys splash for a few. On the way there we must have woken a buck up from his nap and startled him because when he jumped Dan jumped. But then Dan was like "oh...deer... no biggie" and immediately relaxed and ignored the deer. Good pony! We headed back home up the big XC hill for a bit of hill work. 

 

I suppose that at least our shorter rides are happening more frequently so... I don't have to stress as much. I'm sure this is much better for him in the long run than longer rides, but it makes me happy that we are getting more rides in since they are shorter.