Daniel and I headed to Ashland today to ride with Kelli. I opted to put the saddle on today, though I'm not entirely sure if it's actually fitting him. He's sound in it but... it does seem like maybe his topline is looking a little worse since I started riding him in that vs bareback. So... I don't know.
We started in the arena but then Kelli had to do a saddle change so I went to the cross country field and we did our 3 laps each way in the water treadmill. Then we headed back to the arena to hang out with Kelli and Marvin. Dan was good. He was trying. We did some lateral work and then I had Kelli look at our trot half passes to help me. Because we're struggling with them. She pointed out that he's not really moving his haunches in... so she told me to keep the outside rein, sink my inside seatbone down and put my outside shoulder back. We were laughing because I can bring my outside shoulder back but then I keep looking the wrong way. She told me to look where I was going but I told her I can't disconnect my shoulder and chin that way. I have to look the way my shoulder is going. I looked like a deranged owl trying to disconnect my body. ha ha. It was not working. So then I got a decent trot and then got off and let Kelli get on. She only rode him at the walk and then got off. I freaked her out about not shortening his neck and she panicked that she would ruin him. :( I felt bad.... but she hopped off. Oh well. So then she told me to hop on Marvin so I played with him. He's fun. He's much more responsive and supple feeling than Dan... you can move his body parts much more easily. So I played with the half pass with him and got a little better with my shoulder. Then she wanted me to gallop him in the field so she walked Dan out and I rode Marvin out to XC. We "galloped"! Hee hee. It was like riding Carlos in Ireland. Those little potato legs only go so fast. But it was fun!
Then I got back on Dan and tried to recreate the half pass. It definitely makes a big difference to move my outside shoulder back. I tried to not be quite so extreme with it and then was able to move my chin to the inside some. We hacked back to the arena and then I let Kelli ride Marvin a bit to see if she could get him going again, but I probably tired him out. So then I tried the half pass again with Dan in the arena and it was definitely better! I actually got some true half-pass but it did help to start with his haunches leading, keep the outside rein, sit to the inside, and keep my outside shoulder back. So yay!
It was a fun day even though we ran out of time to really hack. And I don't know how much trotting I actually did on Dan but it clocked us at 17 minutes before I got on Marvin, so.. I'm guessing I probably cheated and did closer to 20 minutes. Whoops. And he did canter down centerline instead of lengthen at the very end of our ride. I was trying to reward him a hair for being good but he was tired so he chose canter instead. Oh, and his tongue only came out twice today... when I got a little too heavy handed with the inside rein and he got compressed and overbent in the half pass. But only those two times.
Tonight after I rode Funny and Lyric I injected Dan's shoulder girdle. I figured it would maybe help his neck and brachial plexus and maybe it'll help the shoulder atrophy. I meant to inject some sarrapin in the atrophed infraspinatus and supraspinatus too but ran out. I did put like...1 mL in there though. But we'll see if it helps the neck base atrophy and shoulder atrophy. Or at least makes him feel better. He was a really good boy for it.
