Sluggish and Spooky!

 Oh Dan! 

Today is a weird day. I ended up working because of a miscommunication. Plus it was supposed to be raining all day. Again. And again.. it wansn't. In fact, last night we were supposed to get severe storms and there was talk of tornados. Luckily it was fine! Just a little bit of rain and some wind. I even left the horses out because at 11:30 pm nothing had happened yet. So, this morning it was raining a little bit still but warm. I went and worked on the horses in Forsyth and then stopped at the chiropractor for me and Kroger on my way home. Then I had enough time to get Dan and go ride. I didn't want to dressage again since we had done that Mon and Tues and we have a dressage lesson Saturday... and since Jean had a grid set up... we decided to do that. Plus I wanted to try Liz's saddle... and I thought it would be nice to see my position in it. So I took the pivo up too!

The arena was a little soupy so we did our walk work and then a little bit of trotting and cantering. He felt fairly sluggish. I mean, he was doing all the gaits, but they were smaller feeling and while I didn't have to keep after him to keep him going, I wanted to keep clucking for a bigger stride. BUT, I didn't because the footing was nasty. So then I put the pivo up on a jump and twice... the wind blew it over! Man! So then I put it on the stone wall up against the arena fence thinking that it wouldn't blow over being closer to the ground. I was correct, but it kept swivelling through the fence and filming the pasture. Sigh. Oh well. I did manage to get one or two lines, but they aren't great. We practiced our lead change over the cavaletti a few times and actually got it at least half the time if not more! Yay! Then we just went down the grid. And yeah... I'm not sure if our striding is off... or if the grid was set for pony strides... or for a trot ... or I jumped it backwards... or what, but it was a cluster and we bailed out at the last fence. Partly because the last fence wasn't even on a straight line and we almost had to turn left to stay in the jump lane. Of course we also drift right, so... there yah go. So then I fixed it and took some of it out and we jumped it again. Still not perfect striding but... close enough. We did it a few times and then I also jumped one of the walls set up as a single. And then we called it quits. I like Liz's saddle and feel like it feels the same as Sarah's saddle. It's just almost black...  but cheaper. Sigh.. so... ?? Although my leg position wasn't what I wanted in it either based on the videos. Although I guess it is better than in my saddle, especially considering I wasn't even really thinking about it. Still.. it would be nice to have a friend (or a husband) come out one day and record me jumping a few fences in each saddle so I can compare. We'll see. I may be able to beg someone to do that at some point. 

So then we went for a hack to Jean's other house and around the lake. Dan was jumpy! It took us forever to get to the lake loop because he was so putzy and sideways. But despite being a little jumpy there wasn't any major issues. We had a nice hack around the lake, a little spook with a spin and attempted bolt or two at the canoe, but we managed to get by, and then we hopped over the little log and had a little sprint. I almost thought I was going to lose him but then he propped and stopped because he was spooking at a chair. ha ha! We managed to walk home flat footed and happily. Then I gave him a bath in preparation of hopefully clipping him Saturday or Sunday. 

So Yay for riding. And yay for cool photos on this very windy spooky day. :)