Today Dan and I hauled to Ashland to meet Kelli! She got there before us and was working so when we got to the arena we hung out and watched her ride for a bit. I got some video for her. Dan was actually pretty good about sitting with me, except he drooled all down my arm. Ewwww... Ha ha. After she was done I got on and Dan and I practiced our Kelly homework. It's hard. But we managed some nice work. Kelli said that he definitely looked less on the forehand but it was definitely better when he was connected. When my reins went spaghetti loops, he lost it. And.. I know! I can feel it. When he's connected, he's soft and his back comes up and he feels springy! But the problem is.. I'm not willing to have tighter reins to keep the connection. In other words... my whole purpose is to get him to reach forward and down and out. I want his neck to be as long as possible. That is first and foremost. The second thing is that I want him connected. I want a nice soft steady connection. And I get what Kelli was saying. She's not wrong. But I'm willing to sacrifice the connection a little bit in an effort to keep his neck long. I'd rather feed him the reins and lose the connection to a loop than have him shorten his neck, hold, and get behind the vertical. He still does that anyways. Ha! But for Kelli and Marvin, he gets super tense and short and her method is to keep a connection no matter what... even if that means she has to shorten the reins and come back with her hands. And again, she's not wrong. And I'll do that too, but... I'll err on the side of throwing the reins away. I always want to be feeding him more rein if he'll take it. And he does....but then he looses the connection, so my reins get loopy. And that's okay. I'm okay with that. Because when he shortens his neck, that's sooooo bad for his neck arthritis! So we'll take the slow route and get our connection through a looser longer rein. But she did have a good point in that when he's got no connection and is on the forehand, that's not good for him either. Yep! And I'm trying! I'm trying my best to keep him connected but feed out the reins as much as I can and to keep the connection as soft as possible with his neck as long as possible.
So we did our walking and trotting and cantering and he was good. It wasn't all perfect and I lost the connection a good bit, but we got some nice work. And it was hard work, so he fell out of it some, but that's okay. I'm not fit yet either buddy. :) But we did get some glorious moments of true connection, true self carriage, and lifted back! After we finished and Kelli and I talked through the whole connection vs floppy reins thing... she made my day. She told me that I should be very proud of what I had done and accomplished with him. In general... and overall. She said that very few people would have picked up the pieces as many times as I have for him and not just that, but also gotten better results each and every time. She said that looking at him go the last few rides, he just looked so good! She said I should be proud of myself and him. And I guess I am. It was so nice to hear her say that. We've worked so hard and I've done everything I can to help him.
Then we headed out on the trails for a quick hack. Kelli had to head home so Dan and I were by ourselves. We went to the little lake first and oh my gosh.. the pollen!! Then we went down to the big lake and I let him have a splash. He was having a blast, but dude... my saddle!!!! So then we went for a short little canter in the fields and headed up the hill back to the trailer. Good pony!!!
Then, I don't know what I was thinking... I loaded him up and told him I would go get him a treat. Apparenlty I did not put the ramp up. I did the butt bar. I put away my things and gave him a cookie, but never checked the ramp. When I pulled out I thought it seemed a little loud but it's always so bumpy and ridiculous there... Then when I pulled onto the road, again, I thought it was a little loud but there was a huge semi pulling cars near me, so I thought it was him. And no one said anything. I should have looked. I don't know why I didn't. So then we turned right onto 81 and as we were by the church, a white truck passed me and then put their hazards on and slowed down and started waving. At first I was like "jerks... don't pass me then slam on your breaks"... "Ohhhhh!!!"... I pulled over and they yelled "your door is open". Ooops. Poor Dan!!! He was so brave. I'm so grateful that God protected him and my ramp. One of the bumpers had just fallen off, so I was able to grab it. But the ramp itself was fine. Jeesh!!! Thank you nice people for telling me!!!
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