Wintery Ride

 Well I got to use my new fleecey breeches today! I like them. Friday was a beautiful day and Mike and I went to hike Blood Mountain. Which meant.. no riding. And then yesterday I volunteered at Pine Top so... no riding. So today.. I rode. Even if it meant riding in the cold. But hey.. it wasn't raining yet so yay for that! I ended up riding at home. I dawdled a little bit this morning because it was chilly and I just wanted to chill for a bit at first. 

I took my time and put the Bemer on Dan and did his core exercises. I also did some fascial work on that spot on the right flank where he's always so fussy. And it was interesting because he would snarl at me... then look curious... then look relaxed... and then I'd move my hand, and he'd snarl again, then look curious, then relax. So... hmmmmm. I will have to pay attention to that and keep working on it. I groomed him and tacked him up and bribed him with treats. But overall he seemed much happier and better behaved. So we shall see. I'm still unsure if there is some pain or if he's just a goober who likes to be snarly or a combination of both. 

 

I wanted to use the pivo so we walked up to the arena so I could set it up. We did a tiny bit of pillar work too. And then I realized, dang it.. I was hoping to use the equiband. Oh well. Next time. I warmed him up a good bit at the walk. I had set one ground pole out and we practiced doing the side pass over it. I don't know why but I thought it might be helpful to know how to do that. We started at the edge but going to the right he was actually quite good for his first try. Going to the left was much harder. Interesting... noted! As I'm sure that means something. 

 

We had a pretty good ride. Pivo is driving me bananas because it's not really working at all. It pretty much didn't track me at all, didn't zoom, and didn't really do anything. It was like I had just set my camera up there and hit record. Granted, I had the remote control but honestly, other than that.. I might as well have just set the phone camera up and recorded. Argh. I hope I can figure out how to get it working because it's handy to be able to monitor things. 

We had some good work but overall he felt more rushed today and a bit more on the forehand than lately. His canter was nice and we got some really nice work but when I tried to slow him down a hair and ask for more sit, he got shorter strided. I did get some good trot half-passes, some good walk to canter transitions, some good canter shallow serpentines, and some improved canter to walk transitions that were still not canter to walk transitions though. We also had some nice shoulder ins and a nice lengthen or two. But at the end when I tried to do a stretchy trot he was practically running away with me. Goober! 

We walked back to the trailer. I was tempted to take him for a neighborhood hack as he was still wanting to go and pick up the next gait as we were finishing up our ride and even when I had dropped the reins and told him he was done. However, it was looking more and more like it might rain and the radar said 1 pm. And i was still hoping to ride Lyric and wanted to eat lunch. (Unfortunately by the time I had lunch it was raining. Not hard enough to not ride, but hard enough to make me not want to ride). 

Unfortunately I definitely won't be riding tomorrow as I've got a full day and then Tuesday we'll probably do a XC lesson with Jacel to prep for Full Gallop!