So... yesterday was a bad day. Today was better. I was not expecting it to be better to be honest. In fact, I was crying on my way to my lesson. It was cold and windy and dreary today. The rain was supposed to start around 1ish... and my lesson was at 12:30. I'm not even sure why I signed up for a lesson... other than Kim had given me some hope for the sucralfate I guess. And I miss it. And I almost cancelled yesterday but figured that at the very least, Kelly could give me some help and feedback and at the very very least... get some video for me. So... we went. It was way colder than I expected because of the wind, but I bundled up.
We got there early so we could hack first. I knew that we wouldn't get to hack after because of the rain. So we did. I got in about 45 minutes of hacking, which was actually kind of nice. It was cold but once we got out of the wind, it wasn't too terrible. Dan had fun. At one point, he stopped, sniffed the ground, backed up, sniffed some more, then turned around... followed the smell a few steps, then turned back around and walked off. Ha! I swear he's part bloodhound! We had a little bit of a trot, although he was not as soft and unbraced as I would have liked and we even had a little canter. I also had to stop and get off and pee because... coffee! He was confused but behaved. We got back to the arena in time and we were warmed up.
I told Kelly what was going on and... she made me feel good. She told me that we were a grand team and that Dan would walk through fire for me. Awwww... I love that Kelly loves him too. So... we started out to see what we had. She wanted me to do some figure 8's at the stretchy trot. She told me to get his nose down to the ground, but also forward. So forward, down and out. And it took a bit. He wanted to suck behind the vertical. She also told me to get longer reins. Ha ha! Time to attach my flash noseband to them! So we kept at it and finally got some nice good stretch where he actually let go with his neck, as opposed to still holding. Ahhh... dully noted! And I definitely need to keep that in mind.
So then we picked him up and she told me ride him in a more connected frame but focus on keeping his nose out. BUT.. don't let him steal the reins too much. It's a fine, delicate line with him... he needs to have a long neck, and not duck behind the vertical, but... not get too long. We rode a square/rectangle, doing turn on the haunches through the turns. So, quarter turns. And... duh!!! Use the outside rein to move the shoulders...not the outside leg! That's why Dan keeps throwing his haunches around. Because I'm telling him to! Doh. Also, he does tend to fall in at the last step of the turns so use my inside leg and almost leg yield him out as I come out of it. But perhaps if I ease up on the outside leg, I won't need to! So then we progressed to 1/2 turns to do straight line, reverse, to straight line, to reverse. We managed to get those pretty decent so then we took a break and then went to the trot.
She had us trot shoulder fore. Not shoulder in. Which put his nose at 1-o-clock and keep him there. He was quite fishy today and was squirming around. Perhaps because my legs were asking for more than I thought??? Gonna have to work on that. But we managed to get it pretty consistent and quite honestly... taht's the best he has felt for a bit. Then she had us do it on the quarter line... so we couldn't cheat with the rail. That was a bit trickier but we managed it. Then... she had us come down quarterline... go straight.. then shoulder fore... then a few steps of half pass! Fun. He kept leading with the haunches in the half-pass, which again, I'm sure is related to my overzealous leg. But I managed to somewhat get him balanced out and our left half pass was quite nice really! Then he got a little quick and she was having me reel him back in. I was laughing because he kept fishtailing and then was getting strong and I had to reel him in. BIG TUNA is back!! ha ha... But it was so nice to have him "on the muscle" again instead of sluggish. However, I did put my spurs on today. But I'm not entirely sure it was related to that vs so much of.... the steadier rein contact, more support, the wind, more correct riding, the exercises themselves, or... was it because of the sucralfate? Or the fact that he got methocarbamol this morning? Sigh... Regardless, I'll take it!
We finished with that and more stretching trot. No cantering today. Which... I was torn, because I wanted to see if she could fix the canter... or was it still a struggle.... but also... he worked hard and don't punish him and if that's where it hurts... avoid that for a bit. So.. probably best we didn't get to the canter. And maybe Kelly did that on purpose.
He's still very gassy today. Worse than usual... maybe it's the sucralfate? Maybe it's the succeed? Who knows. Anyways... Kelly said that while he looked way better... she did still see some flinching/hesitation when his left front hit the ground. And she agreed it was likely the neck. She said she would agree with me on the thought of injecting that, and the sooner the better. She is also team steroids. And she also thought perhaps it would be best to try to cancel the Lucinda clinic. I'm so glad she's on our team. And I'm so glad I brought Dan today. Now if I can just recreate these rides without her! Or get her here more often!
No comments:
Post a Comment